Harry Potter an the Soul Rest Draught
by thebombhasbeenplanted
Summary: Harry Potter's fated meeting with Lord Voldemort, long ago, left him without parents and a sleeping disorder. Thankfully, at the magical school of witchcraft and wizardry, Hogwarts, such a small disorder is easily fixed by the potion master. Short story involving a little bit of shallow romance, no violence or mature themes. Rated T because I have no idea how that rating works.
1. Chapter 1

**Author Notes and Disclaimer:**

I don't pretend to own the Harry Potter franchise and make no money off this.

This story is NOT a sequel, prequel or otherwise continuation of my first story. It is NOT very similar either so be warned. This one is pretty much PG 13 or however you'd call a story that doesn't contain too mature themes and such.

It is not an epic saga, it will be pretty short (3 chapters), and doesn't really serve a purpose or lead to an ending that carries meaning or anything fancy like that, it's just a small story I wrote when I didn't have much work to do at my job. Basically an extended oneshot.

For the multiple request of making a sequel to "Too young to die", I will say that it might happen as I do enjoy writing, but I wouldn't count on it because I haven't even started to think about it as of now.

That said, please enjoy and review.

 **Update 27/01/2018: after receiving several complaints about the format, I was forced to understand that it's really terrible. So, I fixed it to fit the conventional story-telling format to the best of my ability. I haven't added or removed any content.  
**

* * *

 _Chapter One._

* * *

 ** _First Episode._**

* * *

Harry ducked under a flying, fuzzy slipper as he himself almost slipped onto the equally fuzzy carpet upon entry in the living room. He had been, and still was, running at full speed - following the swarm of blond hair and corks and metal caps in front of him, his good friend and important ally Luna Lovegood.

She grabbed the real-marble kitchen top and sprang herself over it like a culinary gymnast of some sort, gracefully avoiding the ham and ham pieces and ham knife, she landed and turned a sharp left, into the corridor. Harry followed with roughly the same finesse, or at least he didn't look at what he left behind, and set into the corridor, now limping due to a small miscalculation that had gotten his knee gently slapped against the stone.

The corridor had the same fuzzy consistence to it, the walls were of a crumbling dark green wallpaper - the Wizard type, the one made of cloth and left to mold behind several high-ceiling pendulums; the floor was creaking wooden planks covered with a dark red carpet and - too late, they were out of the corridor, flung through a door opened with either Luna's or Harry's shoulder, none could tell, and they were in the living room.

Soon enough, Luna had dived over the couch and rolled on the other side, Harry jumped it and its occupants - he noticed them mid-jump as the old man reading his newspaper took out his pipe and gave him an acknowledgment nod; "My good sir.", he added - and Harry landed on his feet, the momentum carried him forward too fast and he bowled into Luna. They both got back up quickly and started running again when the muggle electrical toaster tossed tasty toasts in the air with that "tchak" noise, as if it had been the cue they'd been waiting for. They barreled through the bathroom, then in another corridor, then about five guest rooms, and in another living room, this one with a fireplace, and back in a corridor again.

Harry was not feeling tired just yet, every stride he took, he could feel a jolt of adrenaline pushed into his system; they were in a room again, Luna stopped dead and snapped her head to the right door - a splendid teak double-door of intricate craftsmanship with bronze knobs.

"The Nure are catching up, this is a shortcut!" she yelled, before kicking them open and disappearing in the next room. Harry nodded, the Nure had been chasing them for several hours now, they indeed needed a shortcut to widen the gap, although...

"The Nure has the key to the Netherlands," he'd yell back, in between two gasps, "We need to go down several levels to find another key."

"I know that!", she didn't miss a beat, " - this is going to take us down!". They ran down the small spiraling staircase, the steps were incredibly thin and narrow, their rhythm echoed this new situation as their own steps echoed low thumps in the structure of this immense house.

"We've already gone down fifteen levels, I'd reckon we're good now!" he called after a moment of careful stepping down.

"We're running out of time!" she responded, which threw him off suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"Cookies are going to get cold if we don't hurry up!" she insisted.

He accelerated, pushing her down from behind, "Well, hurry up, will you?".

Pushing down? No, pushing up, they were going up; Harry stopped dead. Something was amiss. Something wasn't right, cookies? "The Nure..." he whispered, then, it hit him, like a full-speed hypogriff hits a rabbit.

Of course. Of course it was, how nonsensical was this whole situation, and Luna... he was here with Luna for a reason, he knew that. "Luna!" he shouted, "We've got to get out of the building, now!", he couldn't see her anymore in the staircase but knew she was just here. "It's going to blow up!"

They both ran out of the staircase and into a corridor with a great, shiny window at the end. They raced one another and reached it quickly, fighting for the latch to open it.

"Let me -"

"Let me do it!"

"Stop!"

"Argh!", she had bit him on the shoulder.

Harry pushed the window wide open and they both jumped out of it. Luna screamed a shrill scream shortly silenced by mouth and ears full of warm water as they sunk into a naturally-carved pool.

Harry rose out and scanned the horizon for signs of his friend, through voluptuous clouds of steam lazily drifting away from the surface, he could only see rocks and exotic vegetation, flowers - lotuses, white lilies and irises - in elegant Asiatic vases, stools and buckets of polished wood - a square, soapy sponge - and eventually, Luna, in a two-piece muggle bathing suit.

"This place used to be more... vain and uppity, but they've renewed to attract new customers - I like it very much - very... Feng Shui wouldn't you say? I dare even say they've gone for a Lamine protocol and eradicated all strains of Fallacious Shauberts."

"Fallacious what now?" he questioned, swimming toward the teenager as she dipped a toe in the hot spring bath.

"Shauberts. Fallacious Whatnows have been chased out of Britain long ago."

"Are we in Britain, though?"

Luna looked at him, amused, "Of course we are, you lunatic. Have you changed into your bathing suit?".

Harry realized his robes - or whatever he'd been wearing - had disappeared and until he thought about it, nobody could tell what he was wearing under the surface. "I haven't brought one, you know the tradition is to become one with the elements".

Luna nodded, "Natural, huh, I agree to that. To each his own I suppose but those muggle suits are strangely uncomfortable."

Without actually thinking anything over the line, Harry playfully jabbed that she was even more uncomfortable about going the natural way, to which she took offense. "You underestimate my self-esteem, Harry, I am a witch.".

She moved her arms behind her back, reaching for the middle of it, and started fiddling with the clasp or knot holding her top piece, Harry, instantly feeling wrong for having accidentally put himself in this potentially uncomfortable situation, also found himself accidentally very interested by how this situation would play out.

Finally, Luna had finished to undo the obstacle, and the piece of cloth fell down slowly - very slowly - extremely slowly - and Harry rose in his bed, a long inhalation of steam and flowery scent still in his nose and the silk sheets of Hogwarts tense in his gripped hands. His eyes wide open, he was staring at the very quiet drape closing his bed and, fell backwards with a sigh, startling his three pillows.

"Damn it." he whispered.

* * *

 ** _Second Episode._**

* * *

Brow furrowed and pensively rubbing his chin, sullen Harry Potter lazily strolled through the Eight Corridor of Disenchantments - literally, this was the name of the corridor - his left hand on his schoolboy satchel and his mind exploring the ramifications of his last-late-night encounter. Those ramifications, at first, involving things of the flesh that a healthy fourteen years old boy could not blame himself to consider, were now touching more philosophical subjects; namely: was it right, or wrong?

"Just as a child, not knowing smarter, tricked into gambling their pocket money..." he mumbled mysteriously, nodding to his analogy. He had nudged, without a doubt, and in a larger sense, initiated the entire thing. He was liable and responsible for her actions, which was a strange thing to think, he understood, but true in many ways - and was this near-outcome acceptable? Considering Ginny was his one and only and had been for some amount of time, probably not - thank Merlin, he thought, she would never know about this.

He passed a suit of armor and returned its bow absentmindedly with a nod, turning his thoughts around. Lovegood was not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination, what she had in mind and what pushed her to say or do the things she did or said was a mystery most likely even to herself - he knew that, yet, he needed to explore at least what it could have meant, for her.

"Mmmmmh..." he said. "Well, I suppose at least I'm getting good at shaking it off." he smiled.

Indeed, recognizing a dream is no easy business due to the nature of dreams, and Harry was getting better at it - he allowed himself to drop morality issues for a moment and indulge in self-congratulation, it had been a near-success - no, he corrected himself and re-adjusted his goals, an actual success in terms of figuring out the dream. What went down in the dream was merely consequential, incidental even, and he would leave it at that.

"Hey Harry." said his friend from behind him as he caught up.

"Hey Ron."

They walked silently, Harry was still somewhat thinking about Luna without really thinking about her.

"What class do we have again?"

"Potions, Ronald, like every Tuesday morning. Four hours."

Ron groaned. "I think that's it for me, I've reached my limit. Harry, please kill me."

"Ask Hermione, here she is." he nodded at Hermione coming out of the Trophy Room - a shortcut from the second floor's girl's bathroom.

"Hermione, Harry won't, so please kill me, pretty please?" begged Ron loud enough for her to take notice of them.

"Hi." she said simply.

They caught up with some other housemates and mumbled some greetings, shook some hands and stepped into Snape's torture dungeon.

"Dean's still acting weird, uh." mentioned Ron.

"Yeah, I guess." said Harry.

Hermione raised her eyebrows, "Because of the dragon stunt you mean?", they nodded the affirmative. Dean hadn't been the only one to act weird around him since the first task - they were somewhat awed, perhaps not quite sure it had been real and the guy standing here was really that same guy that out-flew a dragon on a broomstick.

"Don't get me started on that, I cannot listen one more time to the girls rave about Harry, those hypocrites.", she answered.

Ron looked like he swallowed a quip - probably to avoid angering Hermione that early in the day - as they sat down and braced for the four hours lesson. Harry straightened up slightly, unusual for him, this time was different, he'd try to give off a somewhat okay impression to this tyrant of a professor.

The door slammed open, as usual, and Snape rushed in like they were not even here. He scribbled some stuff on the board and turned to the class to utter the usual words: "Two hours. Begin.", before sitting behind his desk to read a surely very dark book.

Harry had been focusing on doing a good enough potion setup for what seemed like hours - it was a multiple days preparation so obviously they only had time for the initial setup and would finish it some other time - and ultimately, slipped into boredom and sleepiness. He chopped garlic with his knife absentmindedly, staring at nothing and vaguely aware that he already had enough garlic but unable to be arsed to move to the next ingredient.

Longbottom sighed next to him, Harry had forbid him from putting anything to the cauldron and he had nothing to do but pretend to be busy and doodle on a hidden parchment. "Hey, wanna play pixie hunt?", he asked.

Harry shrugged, why not do that, it's not like he had any interest in actually finishing the potion at this point: "Sure".

As far as he could tell, pixie hunt was basically battleships and minesweeper combined, with smaller ships and more tags to one square - weirdly enough, those were probably one of the only muggle games he knew about. They set to draw their tables on a parchment expertly kept under their respective copies of Advanced Brews for Hogwarts Students and before long, were whispering coded instructions to each other.

"Kay ten."

"Tree, red hue, faint whiff. Bee nine."

"Tree, blue hue, good scent.", Harry turned a page and moved his knife, "Kay eleven.", and so, the clock ticked.

* * *

Eventually, Snape got up and wiped the board with a wave of his wand. Harry had lost several pixies and was down to two, but he had used his three lies cleverly and succeeded in misguiding Neville to hunt in a wrong portion of his table, but that wouldn't last for long and he still had four pixies. The professor picked up a stack of paper and moved toward the pupils, some of them groaning as the dreaded prediction of the second part of the lesson being a written test confirmed itself, and suddenly, panicked whispering sprang from a desk in the back.

Lavender and some other girl were arguing over what she had just dropped into the cauldron and quickly enough, it started glowing orange. "Fools, it's overheating, cut the fire." snarled Snape as he strode to them, but the fire was already cut and the cauldron simply melted and poured its hot content on the desk, which caught on fire immediately. Snape conjured a large amount of water on it with an expert silent spell.

"Fox hair instead of panther hair, you absolute brainless children. Why do you bother bringing your tome if you can't read. And none of your so called friend to save you from your own stupidity. Potter!"

Harry jumped slightly at his name. "Yes?"

Snape walked to him and peered at his own cauldron. "Had you been competent enough to get to this stage you could have warned her. But it seems even a third year's brew is too much for you. Some champion you make. Fifteen points from Gryffindor.", he then resumed to give a test parchment to each pupil.

Harry sighed.

"Vee one.", whispered Neville.

"You've got to be kidding me!", he spat. Here went another pixie.

* * *

Apparently two hours later, Harry really couldn't tell, test parchments were being stacked back together on the teacher's desk. He took his time and motioned his friends to go on without him.

"Professor?" he said modestly, and waited for an answer.

Snape sighed and started picking up the stacked parchments. "What do you want?"

"Sir, sorry but I'm running out of dream potion."

Snape sneered. "Dream potion, you say? The Soul Rest Draught is a concoction made to fight your insomnia, boy, dreams are only after-effect of a good rest for the soul, but an imbecile of your caliber will never understand this, I suppose. That doesn't mean you can use this infantile term in my presence."

Harry frowned slightly, so far the plan was working, Snape got riled up by the wrong denomination of his potion and hopefully that would keep him from wondering why he was out of it already. "Well, with all due respect, sir, soul rest draught sounds a lot more childish to me."

"It so happens that nobody cares about your opinion, however.", Snape countered with a malevolent smile. He looked at Harry right in the eyes and for a second they stared at each other in silence, then he snorted slightly. "I see. The last bottle you got was meant to last until December, what happened to it?"

Harry swore internally, the man was inhumanly sharp. He scratched the back of is head coyly. "I, uhh, I guess I used a bit too much... well I kind of spilled some of it."

"Clumsy idiot, I should have known. I would have you brew your own batch, if you weren't so useless. Go to madam Pomfrey, she has enough in storage."

Upon dismissal, Harry turned around and left the dungeon, sighing at the knowledge that too soon, he would have to set foot in again.

* * *

 _ **Third Episode.**_

* * *

"Absolutely, that's why they're so expensive.", said Ginny, she played with the golden snitch flirting with her hand.

"How expensive exactly?" asked Hermione.

Ginny thought about it, "I don't know, dozens of galleons probably, I think this is legit gold."

"But it's not like you can sell them." interjected Ron, "They become unsellable after being caught because they always escape and look for their master."

"They can trace their master back?" Hermione asked.

"No, they just get lost really." he shrugged.

Sunrays bounced on the golden, intricately engraved surface of the little ball, some of the last sunrays of the year, probably. They had all discarded their winter attire as they sit in front of the lake, it just wasn't that cold yet.

Luna spoke up from behind her magazine, "I used to think there were fireflies trapped in those, but it turns out it's a firehornet. They are more aggressive but also more loyal, it seems.", everybody looked at each other and shrugged.

"I guess we could open one up and check inside." offered Ron.

They all looked at the happy little snitch burrowing itself in Ginny's pocket and darting out playfully and generally just agreed that no, it wasn't worth the trouble.

"You know, there were some guys that tried to cheat this way -" started Ron, but Harry zoned out, still looking at the snitch; he started to wander in his thoughts. Was it time to go onto bigger things? Was it time to execute Operation Needletip? He shook his head. No, he should have another attempt first. He looked at Luna conversing with Ron, her blond hair swaying softly in the wind. She was a wonderful partner, really, she wouldn't mind another test, he knew, nor would he.

There was no harm in just another attempt, and obviously, he wouldn't try to make her do anything out of line - that had been a legitimate accident. His eyes hovered over Ron... no, that felt wrong in a way. Then Ginny, and against himself, he shuddered - he didn't want to feel that way about her but that one time... that one time he had done it with her - no, he didn't want to think about it. No matter, girlfriend does not mean dreamfriend, it doesn't mean anything, he reasoned. Hermione, maybe, but not really - it was somewhat boring and it made him uncomfortable to even think this way.

His eyes wandered further, upon the lake and the surrounding flora, as his mind crept back up to Lovegood, until he spotted another blonde in the distance. He raised his eyebrows. Who was that again? Wheatgrass, her name was? No idea about her first name, though.

His fist hit his palm, Luna and Ron looked at him. "That's it. That would provide experience in two ways, maybe even three."

"What do you mean?" asked Ron. "Harry, you don't need to do that sort of underhanded stuff at all, you already -"

"What? I haven't been listening to you."

"Oh.", they looked at each other awkwardly and Ron turned back to Luna, "Anyway -"

Harry looked at the quite beautiful girl behind the bushes and smiled an evil grin. The plot was building itself in his mind by the second. That'll do, he thought, that'll do just fine.

* * *

He brushed the painted pear with a large peacock feather, first its round bottom, then its thin tip, and finally, it started giggling in a way, and the entire not-so-still life artwork slid to reveal a small staircase and a wooden door. Behind, several large but very low mahogany tables, dozens of iron pans and pots hanging from the low ceiling, drowned in smoke and steam, hundreds of dishes stacked each two sides of a four-way sink isle with multiple faucets constantly running and providing background noise in the rare moments when oil and butter weren't sizzling and water and broth weren't boiling - stone ovens and furnaces, large slides heading underground to the second level, ropes and wooden flaps as a form of communication, it was as busy as ever, and once more, he had to wonder how the hell did they need this much ruckus to make three meals a day - back at Privet Drive it wasn't anywhere near similar.

Granted, it was only for four (three and a quarter) mouths, but even by scaling to Hogwart size, he couldn't figure it out. They must feed some other people somehow. The elves were running around constantly, cutting, frying, heating, cleaning, and singing. Singing loud, by aisle, each their own song overlapping with the other - there was probably somewhat of a competition as well, which would explain the volume.

"And ho, and ho, and here we go! Poor sod, poor sod, drained of his blood! This ox, this ox, we'll cook it in our woks!"

"Dobby!" Harry all but yelled, waving at the busy little thing.

"He'll die, he'll die, he'll die for our shepherd's pie!"

Dobby the elf reached him and brought him closer to the charcoal grills, at the moment unused and possibly the most quiet corner of the kitchen.

"Harry Potter sir! Dobby is very glad to see you! How generous to visit Dobby!"

"Well, um, yes. Anyways, I thought that you might know about something -"

"Anything Mister Harry wants, Mister Harry Potter."

"Yes, as I was saying, um, please don't cut me, Dobby, so -"

"Sorry, sir Harry Potter."

"- so, you know about some people, they get to their bedside table, every morning, some pumpkin juice."

"Oh yes, Dobby makes sure never to miss an order, Harry Potter can have the very best juice, Dobby will -"

"Wait a second, wait. I don't want it, I wanted to know if it's you that delivers it, so that's lucky."

The elf nodded. "Sometimes it is I, but if Harry Potter wants juice I will make sure he has it!"

Harry patted the brave little thing on the head. "Thanks but no thank you. I want to know about that Wheatgrass girl, you know her?"

Dobby searched his memories for a moment and its face illuminated. "Oh yes, of course, Dobby knows about the Ravenclaw who smokes wheatgrass. She is a bad girl, Mister Potter, sir, very bad."

Harry reeled back somewhat. "Smokes wheatgrass? Why? Wait... who? Why?", he shook his head, "Doesn't matter, no, I didn't mean that, Dobby, I meant, isn't there a girl named Wheatgrass in Slytherin?"

The house-elf thought about it again and nodded again. "Perhaps Mister Potter means Miss Greengrass?"

"Yes, absolutely, here it is, you're right, Greengrass. I mistook her name.", finally, he was getting somewhere. He glanced at his wristwatch but forgot to actually read the time off it and didn't bother to glance again. "Anyway, Greengrass, does she take pumpkin juice at her bed?"

"No sir, she gets tea."

"Well, doesn't matter, Elf D - that's your code-name from now on - I need you to spike her tea."

Elf D, to his defense, reeled back suddenly as if Harry had been made of clothes. "Sir, Dobby cannot sp- Elf D cannot spike students.", he corrected himself, clever enough to realize the point of a code-name when discussing shady businesses.

"No, no, don't worry about the potion.", Harry took out a small vial, "It's fine, I've used it plenty on plenty of people, it's fine. Besides, this is just a test run, Elf D, I'll need you for the real thing later on, it's fine, trust me. You trust me, right?"

"S-Sir, Elf D trusts master Ha..Horace P-Padlock, sir, but-"

"There is no but, Elf D, let me tell you; the potion is fine. Listen, the dangerous part, for me, is the spiking. I have done this a lot before, believe me, and there has been many missteps - one time, years ago, I tried to spike George and Fred Weasley with it and ended up spiking a whole pitcher in the great hall, by mistake. It turned out fine because so many people drank it that it basically lost its power entirely. Another time, I tried to spike my best friend Hermione Granger, you know I wouldn't hurt my friends, Elf D, and the whole staircase turned into a slide! I nearly broke my neck and came crashing down into the common room with my invisibility cloak all tangled about me, talk about a disaster." Harry ranted, using his hands to mime along his tales.

Dobby listened with his hands on his mouth and his eyes wide.

"And that's nothing compared to that one time I was trying to spike - it was a dumb idea in the first place, mind you - Severus Snape, and apparently the man uses some kind of anti-spiking magics on his stuff because the cup blew right up in my face. Thankfully I was able to erase all traces of my mistake so I didn't get into trouble, but I think you understand my point, Elf D. I get in danger to spike them, the potion itself is nothing that could possible go wrong, trust me.

"But-"

"You, Elf D, can spike much better than me and I trust you to do it without incidents, can't you?"

Elf D's resolve was set in stone the moment Horace had spelled the word "trust" and nodded strongly. "If Mister Horace Peddler trust Elf D then it is decided that Elf D shall aid."

"Yes, Elf D, I trust you, please trust me."

"Elf D trusts sir Penner moreso than Elf D himself, sir Polska."

"Alright, that's quite enough. Here.", Harry passed the small vial to the elf. "Use half of it, make sure the tea doesn't look too weird."

The painting slid back behind Harry, he buried his hands in his pockets, his ear ringing from the mayhem inside, he had gotten accustomed to it. "Well, I didn't lie at all, so really, I think I even convinced myself here.", he shrugged, the pangs of guilt not quite quieted yet.

"This is serious stuff, though." he whispered in his collar. "He wants to kill me, I can't sit down and feel sorry about the means to the end."

* * *

 _ **Fourth Episode.**_

* * *

The waves clashed against the wooden hull with a pleasant sound, accompanied by seagulls and a breath of salty wind. Harry moved his queen six squares forward, it was now angled perfectly to take out either the horse or the bishop. "Mmmh..." said Ron, his hand joining his jaw for a moment of deep strategical thoughts.

Very suddenly, a beachball smashed the table and knocked over the pieces, along with the glasses of fresh beverage and the anchovy-stuffed olives bowl. Ron slammed his fist on the table in pure, unaltered anger, and bellowed a feral shriek that would have frozen Harry's blood if it hadn't been boiling all the same.

"Show yourself!" was what came out of his mouth, as he turned around ready for murder. Before him, an apologetic look on her face, was student Greengrass. His anger faded a little bit at her sight, she looked truly sorry. Behind him, Ron was rapidly shaking and twisting on himself, his rage unbridled and his throat breaking octaves never broken before - he looked just about to detonate.

"I'm so sorry, it's all my fault!", she begged shyly.

"Mhhh'alright." grunted Harry, his temper switching targets as he started to get pissed off at Ron's antics in the background, "That's enough, Ron, she apologized."

On that, the boy stopped dead in his tracks, his back arched backwards in a inhuman pose - as if he was praying to some strange god. "She... apologized.", he muttered, then snorted, chuckled, and all of a sudden - he blew up: "YOU GOBSMACKING OOZEBALL OF A DAMNED SNAKE!"

"Enough!" said Harry strongly, putting his hand on his red-hot, sizzling friend's shoulder. "Don't cause such a commotion, or the mayor will -"

"Greetings, my dear citizens!" chirped a happy-go-lucky voice. Yellow suit, stripped with black to minimize the sheer girth of his guts, a top-hat and a large roll in his hand, the cruise mayor had strode in.

"Oh, um, sir, we -"

Harry was cut short by a lough clearing of the opulent man's throat and unrolling of his roll. "Mister Harry Potter and Mister Ronald Weasley hereby presently present, for your almost-repeated bullying and improper language toward a young, fair and innocent young - and fair, and innocent - woman; I henceforth sentence you to fifty five and eight hundred and nine seconds of serving the offended party in all matters deemed adequate by the very same party - and this, until the offended party deems itself rightfully satiated in such a manner that recidivism will be prevented - or else."

Harry and Ron gulped. "Or else?", Ron dared asking.

"I don't write these texts, young boy, take it with the legal department. Umph.", he snorted and left as promptly as he came.

"Servant to a snake, Harry, what's gonna happen to us?", Ron was legitimately shaken.

Harry looked at Greengrass who was leaving with her clique comprised of herself, Davis, Nott and some other girl. She couldn't be that bad, he reasoned, a cute girl couldn't possibly be so bad, could she?

"She'll gut us and use our entrails as kites! She'll feed our eyes to baby snakes; protein, lutein and vitamin - they'll grow in no time!"

"Well, whatever happen, we might as well get it over with."

Strangely easily, Ron nodded to that and they walked to uncertain fate together.

They met with Greengrass on the backside of the boat, she was talking with someone. "Oh yes, yes, one of my favorites too, ahah." she laughed in a strange way, Harry thought. "Oh, here are my slaves, just in time I suppose." she looked at them haughtily.

Ron opened his eyes wide at her interlocutor. "This dude!" he yelled, "Harry, this dude's the bloke from that band!"

"What?"

"You know it boy." snorted the cool-looking man. His arms were devoid of sleeves and there was a cockatrice tattoo on his muscled bicep, his chin was covered in stubble and he had an earring.

"He's Highstride Vince." explained Greengrass helpfully, "Don't you know anything?".

Ron nodded slightly, "Yes, yes, his real name was something like... Bernie Wu-"

"Oi! Shut it, kiddo, nobody's asking you!", interrupted the man angrily.

He was now visibly ticked off, and Greengrass scolded both Ron and Harry for their beastly behaviour. "You two worthless idiots shall be my shoes from now on!" she declared royally. "For I deserve to be as tall as I should be."

And thus, Ron and Harry bent down on all fours, Queen Greengrass precariously climbed on their backs and strapped her feet with belts. Here, as she and Mr. Highstride walked the promenade along the side of the boat, discussing various things from politics to sealife, Harry and Ron's shared bond of friendship and brotherhood shone at its utmost; their ability to coordinate with the other's movements and to communicate with swift, accurate hand gestures and carefully timed eye contact enabled them to simulate perfectly a gentle stroll.

Their little trek went on for some time, during which the feeling of Greengrass's foot between Harry and Ron's shoulderblades became a second nature to them, every little shift in weight or tap of a toe instantly translated into a complex set of procedures - as if her feet had been directly wired to their cortex - no, directly to their limbs, bypassing even their own control.

But when Highstride Vince suggested to the tall lady a dance, things took a turn for the worse. It was a waltz, an unknown thing to both Ron and Harry. They had to rely entirely on their Mistress's feet input and react instinctively, at incredible speed. Harry started sweating almost instantly as they started, his own limbs now moving faster than they ever had, he turned, switched, skidded, drifted, slid, flattened and jittered, his communication with Ron was getting worse and worse, signals were interrupted by sudden and unexpected changes, they had ditched the hands quickly when it was clear they wouldn't have time for any finger gymnastics, and relied solely on eye contact, deteriorating rapidly due to exhaustion and panic.

They hit their head once, they stepped on each other's hands, at some point it seemed as if Ron was getting pissed off at Harry falling behind, and as the pressure kept rising, the 3rd movement of Salazar's Fifth Concerto for Violins in E Minor came in full force - and Harry snapped.

He rose. "I refuse to suffer from this miscarriage of justice any longer!", he bellowed as he toppled - literally - his Master. His revolt sent her sprawling over the railing and she disappeared with a rapidly fading cry.

Harry swore and ran to the railing, bent over and saw her falling, far away, above the sparse clouds, and thousands of miles above the earth that would break her in a million pieces. He jumped off the flying ship and angled his body for decreased air resistance and thus faster descent.

The air rushed in his eyes, nostrils and ears, pulling tears away and filling the world with a loud whistle, they were so high in the sky that despite falling at terminal velocity - a term he had learned only recently - the continent under them wasn't even getting bigger. He reached Greegrass and grabbed her by the shoulders. Her throat was menacing to break but she was still shouting.

He thought of a way to help her. "She must wake up." he thought, "She must. Wake up. Wake up, wake up!" he started to shake her, "Wake up!", wake up, he thought, waking up... His eyes opened wide and he shut his mouth. He realized it now, he was dreaming - again. He took a moment to appreciate the reality of the air pushing back as they fell, the detail of the continent below - its forests, lakes, rivers and mountain ranges - he closed his eyes, hugged her and focused on a solution.

Easily, they landed on a huge bird that just happened to glide here, a big, fluffy white-feathered bird whose back was large enough to park a bus on. It was floating about; calm, slow and stable. They fell on their knees and gasped for a moment.

"Where's - where's Vince?", she asked, worried, getting up slowly.

Harry frowned, she still cared about this stupid band singer and his fake name even after he had saved her, how rude. He shook his head. No matter, he thought, it was now time to train his dream persuasion skills.

She looked at him worriedly, her jaw trembling slightly, "Where? Where?" she moaned.

Harry cleared his throat and approached her. "I am Highstride Vince, I am. I was all along."

"You? You were? Oh, of course... You saved me too, Potter."

"Yes I am, and yes I did.", he rubbed his chin, so far it was as easy as he imagined it to be, a dreaming Greegrass was dumb as a bag of rocks, he could have her believe anything. "Let's try that, Greengrass, I need to know your deepest secret. Yes, that'll do, you absolutely need to tell me your deepest secret, the deepest. Now.", he tried, realizing as he spoke that he really should have thought of a better way to demand this, such as making up a random danger to create a sense of urgency.

"W-Why?"

"Uhm, well, uh, if you don't, well... I guess this bird will eat us or something, we're in a bad spot." he tapped the bird's back, "It'll eat us just like that!" and he snapped his finger.

The girl jumped in terror. "I... I don't... Okay. Here it is, I, um..."

"Hurry up, we don't have time!"

"I like muggles!", she all but shouted. "I like how they do stuff without magic I think it's fascinating, there!" she buried her face in her hands. "Don't tell anyone!"

Taken aback, Harry smiled. That surely was a big deal to her, and it had been ridiculously easy to obtain it. "No inhibitions..." he muttered. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked straight in her blue eyes.

"Good, we're safe now.", and saw worry and shame leave her gaze at once, she had believed him fully.

He started to delve deeply in his understanding of the mechanics of the dream and her psyche in it, as well as her unexpected interest in muggles and the success of Elf D's mission and how much trust that meant he could pour into the little soldier - but was interrupted quite brutally as he felt her warmth on him - she had stepped in his personal space and rose her face to his - she had kissed him, and now, her lips were on his, moving ever so slightly as her whole body was trembling. Unable to think anything even less move anything, he stood there frozen, only his lips thawed by her soft breath.

She stepped back eventually, she muttered something like "It was my first, you know.", blushing and looking away, but Harry refused to stop there, she had given something that she didn't have the right to take away, he needed it back. He grasped her and leaned in, she closed her eyes and offered the pulpous, pink lips that he desired so very much, he went for them hurriedly, and as he almost touched them, his vision blurred, his body tingled, he gasped hard and open his eyes wide to see the dormitory's bland old ceiling staring at him in the face.

His heart was beating too fast, his body was aching, his throat was angry, his fingers were going nuts, he groaned, he yelled internally, he ached, so much - his desire was so overwhelming, and the object of it so out of reach. He blasted his way out of his bed and dormitory, into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, grasping the sink's edge as hard as he could, and groaned soundly.

When the housemates came in worriedly asking if he was alright, he told them "The scar's acting up.", naturally they all bought it and patted him on the back with serious looks, Harry had other thoughts in mind.

The day after, as he was putting marmalade on a buttered piece of toast, his eye caught a sparkle of platinum, he craned his head slightly to take a look at her, and his gaze fell right in her own, she'd been looking at him already - intensely. She broke contact, her face redder than its ever been, and pretended to be very interested by her fruit salad.

Harry positively melted.

* * *

 _ **Fifth Episode.**_

* * *

Tonight, the odds were all on his side. He watched Victor Krum and Hermione swirl around under everyone's gaze and steeled himself as he led Ginny and himself behind them, no choice, really, it was traditional procedure. Dancing was quite awful in his opinion and he stopped as soon as humanly possible once commoners started joining in the Champions' spotlight, marking its end.

There was simply not one part he enjoyed in this, he was sweaty from either or both physical or psychological stress, his muscles were clenched, he could not achieve coordination between the "beats" and his body to save his life, the music was loud and uncomfortable, Ginny was bad at it so she didn't help one bit, and worst of all - everyone was staring at him and judging his every moves. No thank you, never again, he thought bitterly when he finally swam out of the crowd and plummeted on a seat next to Ron.

"Sweet moves, mate.", the boy commented with snark, but he paled when whichever Patil he had with him got up and pulled him toward the music floor, practically begging him to give her at least that. Harry shrugged and sipped a butterbeer. He nodded twice at Ginny's unheard comments in the background noise, she stopped talking and started to sip a butterbeer too.

He looked at the crowd dully, getting bored by the second, he opened his mouth to make a comment to his date but closed it as he caught sight of Greengrass, wearing a green dress that was probably too much for such an event; she was holding some guy's hand and laughing; Harry was quickly enraged but he realized it was not some guy but that Davis girl, her friend; he sat down, satisfied. "What are you even doing, Harry?", Ginny asked with a funny smile, laughing at his antics, "You want to walk around?"

They walked and talked, they joined the other Gryffindors and laughed, talked to some other people they rarely talked to, Harry stole about twelve side-glances to Greengrass and half of them were met with her own stolen glances, and eventually, the people were getting drunk and the music got rawer. Young ones were led to their dormitories and some professors politely excused themselves to their private quarters.

Harry found himself absentmindedly massaging the handle of a large terracotta pitcher full of pumpkin juice mixed with rum or some other sort of ethanol based mixture, his thoughts exploring his earlier meeting in the laundry room, with Elf D, regarding his true target. He smiled greedily, cruelly you could say, the night was far from over for both of them - and hopefully, Elf D would never have to face such dilemma again.

In-between two backs facing him, someone slipped, without a doubt looking for the famous rum-and-pumpkin elixir he was the guardian of, her features now very familiar to him as if he had always stared at her, Greegrass stopped dead as she faced him.

"Hey." he started all too quickly, stumbling on his own tongue.

"Hey, Potter.", they both fell silent, she fidgeted a bit and pointed to the pitcher. She was so red it clashed with her green robes pretty bad, she looked like a salad and tomato arrangement.

"Yeah, sure, sorry.", he stepped sideways and let go of the pitcher as if it was scalding hot.

"Thanks." she said.

She served herself a glass and left as quickly as possible, leaving dizzy Harry to stand stupidly like a Quidditch pole.

It took him a few seconds to find his nerve back, but when he did, he did for good. That wouldn't do, clearly, that wouldn't do. He had important work just about to start, he thought, glancing at the time and realizing it was already past one in the morning, and he needed to get this over with. Beside, he couldn't take the tension anymore.

He followed her through the crowd and under the second story's balconies giving view over the great hall and providing some shadow and privacy to its edges. She thought she was safe to take a breather here before going back to her friends, she jumped slightly when she turned around and he was two big strides apart from stepping on her shoes, and he sure was taking huge strides.

"Greengrass", he started confidently, "I have caught your- I mean, we both know that we, uhh how to say it...", not so confident anymore, he started searching for words, "Well, you look at me and I... I look at you too, so-"

"Oh Merlin, Potter, stop it, for the love of magic.", she sighed her hand on her forehead in shame, still very red skinned.

Harry stopped talking.

"Listen, I know I have, I know, okay... I had a dream, you see, I dreamt about you. It was stupid and it doesn't mean anything, but it's been playing with my mind ever since, so please just forget it and it'll all go away. People are looking, Potter, go away."

He had been hearing all the words she was saying, but he hadn't been listening; her lips moved with such fluidity, her pearly whites glistened so gloriously, he inhaled sharply, stepped forward, "That's it, then." he said, having made his decision, he put his hand on her waist, and went right for it.

"Potter, wha-" she only had time to say in surprise before it was too late, and too late it was, dozens of people were watching what was unfolding, she was vaguely aware - eyes now closed - and her limbs had turned into soft noodles anyway, she couldn't do a thing about it.

It had been pretty great, all things considered, Harry concluded as he gently pushed her back for a break. The best thing ever as far as he was concerned, Greengrass seemed to agree for anywhere between one and three seconds until she slapped him right across the face, so soundly that he actually literally lost his hearing in his left ear along with his glasses that took flight toward warmer weather.

People all around winced and jeered, she was practically steaming through her nose and ears, she turned aorund and left quickly as tears made their way in Harry's eyes against his will - it stung like a firehornet - and yet, he couldn't help but smile. He couldn't be fooled, she had clung to him hungrily for as long as it lasted.

"Harry James Potter!" screamed Ginny, emerging from the group of onlookers. "Are you drunk?"

Harry couldn't think of anything, "Um, yeah?", and she slapped him on the very sensitive cheek, still pulsing from Greengrass's loving touch, hard enough that he almost stumbled.

"How dare you? How could you?" she was crying at this point, she sobbed loudly and left.

He mumbled a little nothing at her, not even sure what he was trying to say himself, and she turned about just before leaving the hall and screamed in a broken voice, "Nostro Sec Secura!" which was not the good old bat-bogey hex. Harry's hair started smoking, filling the air with a pungent odour, his eyebrows and eyelashes, shorter that his actual hair, consumed themselves and started burning his skin as their roots went into smoke as well.

* * *

Things were quiet, in the hospital wing. Madam Pofmrey was slowly turning the pages of the fourth large tome in the pile next to the bed. "No...no...mmmh not quite..." she voiced in between two hums and whistle of some tune stuck in her head.

"It hurts pretty bad, ma'am, you got anything for pain?"

"Of course, my dear, I got just the right thing for this; an advice: don't try flying on two brooms. I cannot believe how many times I've said this." she added to herself.

"I don't know what that means. Muggle uprising and such.", he tried to get some pity.

"Play smart with me, will you." she snorted, slamming the tome shut.

"Nothing in this one, maybe we're better off asking the girl herself.", she picked another and started flipping the pages.

Several books later, she harrumphed. "I suppose this is good enough." she taped the current book in her hand and nodded. Minutes later, she wiggled her wand at him, spat a weird incantation and managed to stop the burning of his scalp, now totally bald.

"So you found it, uh?"

She shook her head, "No, I cast another hex on you, one to stop natural hair growth entirely. I suppose the original hex died out without hair to consume."

"Mmmh" answered Harry, "What do we do about my hair then?"

The nurse stretched her limbs and yawned wide. "I am in pieces, Mr. Potter, drank too much punch I reckon. You still have a hex on you so don't move an inch, I'll clear that up tomorrow. Have a good night."

"Wait a second, my hair! What about my hair?."

"What about it?"

"I can't go to classes like this!"

She observed him blankly, but he could detect a hint of amusement behind, "Of course you can. Perhaps, there is a lesson to be learned here, but what do I know? Good night." she said cheerfully and left.

Harry stared at the blank ceiling and sighed. It had been well worth it. He swallowed his daily dose of soul rest draught and closed his eyes, revisiting Greengrass in his memories until artificial slumber took over.

* * *

 **That's it for now. Thanks for reading and review if you can.**

 **In this footer, I will put random facts about feet: In average, a human's feet is 8% bigger in the evening that it was in the morning.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I am not making any money of this.**

* * *

 _ **Chapter Two.**_

* * *

 _ **First Episode.**_

* * *

He observed the reflections of the few speckles of light there still was in the underground classroom on the wet pickled toad and rubbed his smooth scalp thoughtfully. Air currents switched, he could feel them now, someone must have had opened a door down the corridor, he shivered and pulled his collar closed to his neck.

Was he any different from this salty amphibian? He pondered miserably before tossing the corpse to Neville to be chopped up. He sighed and looked at Hermione a few seats away on his left. His last close friend, yet she had refused to help him regain his pride and argued that he should look for it himself - and it wasn't just her, everyone refused to help as if he deserved his shame, even Madam Pince sniffed at him contemptuously when he dared asking for indications. He had not a clue about how to look for anything in the library, and the few "common potions and brews" tomes he had browsed yielded none of his desired miracle cure. So he had given up.

"Nev, you down for pixie -" he started.

"Potter, be quiet. I do not wish to look at your disgusting, bald head anymore than I have to.", hissed - almost literally - professor Snape. "Five points from Gryffindor for being so revolting and noisy."

Harry bowed his head in resignation, hoping that some of the reflecting light would blind the spiteful teacher.

Neville finished the toad and started wrapping the slices in dawngrass with the hand-woven threads they had made out of red hemp in herbology a while ago. Harry wondered if that red hemp thread would have some unforeseen properties once dipped into the mixture, he knew Neville wouldn't have thought of that and adjusted his position further away from the cauldron - if he couldn't even speak then there was nothing else to do, but thankfully nothing happened.

Harry looked at his right, there was Malfoy and a row before him was Daphne Greengrass, stirring her cauldron carefully. The worst part of being hairless was that he couldn't bring himself to look at her anymore, for fear that she'd look back with eyes filled with disgust.

"If only this was a dream." he whispered, Neville looked at him and said "What?".

If it was, he could just focus on its recovery and have his hair back, all black and messy and warm and comfortable, he missed it so much. He would be able to just squint his eyes, push hard and get it, just like that.

"Wow!" yelled Neville suddenly, at his side, and everybody stared at them.

"Potter, what are you doing?" demanded Snape.

Harry reached for his scalp and his hand was suddenly full of healthy, feisty hair - dense and strongly attached.

People were awed and Snape suspicious. "It all popped out suddenly!", "That's not possible.", "He must have taken a growth potion.", "Maybe someone hit him with Capilatura Laxamento Celeritum...", "Accidental magic?", and so on until Snape snapped "Silence!" and background noise came back to crackling fire and boiling potions.

Snape dismissed the event and went back to read as students went back to mincing and mixing - but Harry didn't, he knew, at this moment, once again, that he was and had been, indeed, dreaming. It all came back to him, the plot, his henchman Elf D and the draught, the bedrest-delivery pumpkin juice tankard, and the long awaited answer to an important question just about to be given.

"What a boring dream, though.", he noted, looking around himself. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as he could tell. "Should have known you'd have zero imagination."

"Are you talking to me?" whispered Neville

Harry shook his head. He focused on the time and made it so class was over. "My goodness, look at the time! He exclaimed."

Snape looked at his pocket watch and called them to stop their brew and give him what they had, somehow, most of them had finished their brew even though they had barely started it a few moments ago, and they poured out of the dark classroom and into the naturally lit corridors one level above.

"Malfoy." Harry called, stopping the blond boy in his tracks.

"Potter, glad you got your hair back, at least now I don't feel like-"

"I need to talk to you in private, it's important." he cut him and showed him an empty classroom on their left.

Draco snorted and went inside, followed by Harry who closed the door behind them. "What do you want then?"

Harry held his hand up and looked around before wiggling his wand and saying "Solomo Datsun Benus.", and focusing on having a different body and voice.

Draco looked at the magic unravelling the disguise and gasped, "Father? Wha- what, who..." he regained his composure and squinted at Harry. "Potter, you pretending to be my father?".

Harry shook his gold-haired, aristocratic head. Even in a dream, Malfoy was so dull he actually kept his wits to him. "No, son, I am your father." he pretended. "You think that stupid Potter kid would know how to grow his hair wandlessly?"

Draco swallowed his comment back.

"I'm here under cover, obviously. Things are happening behind the scenes... Draco, I need you to tell me."

"Yes, father?", he said obediently.

"Why did you put Potter's name in the cup?" he asked, his hand on Draco's shoulder. "I'm not mad, but I need to know why."

Draco seemed shocked, he shook his head. "I didn't do it, father, I don't know who did."

Harry made a show of peering at him distrustingly and held his glare.

"No, I didn't, really! Why would I want him to get all the glory again? Father?"

Harry shook his head. "Draco, I know it's you, admit it now or suffer the consequences.", he whipped his wand out.

"Father, no! I did not!" Draco screamed suddenly, surprising Harry, "It's not me, I swear it, father, I swear it".

What the hell, thought Harry. It's like Malfoy really didn't do it, but he had to have done it. Who else in the world could and would have? "The hard way it is then.", he jabbed his wand at Draco and the boy screamed so hard, reality bent and rushed violently - and Harry suddenly was submerged in liquid, somewhere, his mind spinning a hundred times per second.

He kicked around himself and touched a surface, something familiar, small square tiles on a flat floor, he kicked it and swam upward until he could breathe again. "It always ends up this way." he remarked to no one, spitting warm, soapy water.

"I had the strangest dream." said Draco from behind him, startling him. The boy was sitting in the bath pool, raking his hair with his finger and kneading his temple.

"What are we doing naked together in the same pool?" asked Harry, unable to contain his doubt.

Draco rose out of the water, wearing his nakedness proudly, "You're free to leave anytime, Potter, I never invited you here. You were in my dream, too, not in a good way - you were trying to extort intel out of me, I think."

Harry adverted his eyes and made bubbles with his mouth, acting like he didn't care. "Was I? What intel?" he asked innocently.

"This ridiculous Triwizard business and the howabouts of your damned name turning up in it. As if I'd have a hand in this. Now, remind me why you're here for?"

Growing gradually more uncomfortable with the very private setting every second, Harry said farewell to the boy and swam all the way to the other side of the bathpool. He had to accept that Draco had nothing to do with involving him in the tournament, apparently. He wanted to think about it, but there was really nothing to think about; he had been convinced that it was him and now that this fell apart, he found himself with nothing else, he was devoid of purpose - there was no one else he had suspected.

Without even focusing on anything, he swam downwards and found a large tube that he knew would lead him to somewhere else, he entered the underwater passage. On the other side, he emerged out of the Gryffindor bathpool, he hung a towel around his waist and walked out, wondering if his wand was somewhere at all or if it was just non-existent and waiting to be summoned by his consciousness - knowing that it was the latter, and yet, the dream seemed so real and consistent, unlike Luna's or Hermione's or Daphne's.

As he stepped out, his foot landed on a bar of soap and sent him skiing out of the bathroom and into the common room at insane speed; he rocketed past a dozen people, barely holding his privacy together with his hand as the other executed counter-balancing manoeuvers, and he crashed into a three-seater, rolled over it and fell flat on his back in front of the fireplace.

Gryffindors all around were laughing their hearts out and clapping loudly, Harry got up and adjusted the towel again, embarrassed. Before he could leave the common room, someone else came rocketing out of the bathroom, on a soap bar, wrapped in a towel as well and crashed into an armchair after a strange swerving to the right, earning just as much guffawing from the crowd. Then, two other ones, Katie Bell and Lavender Brown holding their hands together, screaming, following Harry's race line and hitting the couch with their heads as they toppled forward due to a fold in the carpet, laughter and cheering were cut as he finally closed the door behind him.

"Ridiculous." he commented as the muffled crowd roared, probably yet another unfortunate soap athlete.

He reached his robes hanger and took a hung robe off its hook. It was weird that the dream still was going on, usually things finished after the climax, if you could call it that, after Harry had gotten where he wanted - or maybe it ended soon after he gained consciousness, or whenever something shocked him enough - at any rate, it should have ended in the Slytherin bath pool, he mused.

And still, it kept its consistence, right here he was in the dormitory and it looked just like normal, nothing too crazy was happening - and maybe the weirdest of all, he couldn't really change much about it, he realized. He kind of went with the flow and could alter details like the water tunnel between the pools but he couldn't ... he tried, scrunching his face ... no, he couldn't even make it a beach or something, the dormitory was staring him in the face as normal as ever.

He got back out in the common room and saw a group of his housemates around the exit. Hermione noticed him and reached for him.

"We can't get out, there's a crocodile in the exit and nobody knows what to do!" she told him.

He craned his head and sure enough, there was a croc in the entrance, lazily watching them. Harry shrugged and went back in the bathroom, removed his robes and jumped right back in the pool, looking for another tunnel. He was going to see Daphne. She would not be real this time around, only a figment of his subconscious, but that was better than nothing.

He made it into the Slytherin girl's pool and ignored their screams and insults when he walked out, this time he plainly stole a green and silver embroidered robes from the stack - it smelled good, he noticed, as its owner was stringing bad words together with uncommon dexterity in his back, confined to the pool lest she'd be seen wholly by him. He made it through the common room with no issue and made a beeline for Daphne who, of course, was here and simply reading a book by the window.

"Daphne, my dear." he introduced himself.

She looked up and gaped at him wearing a female Slytherin robe. "Potter, what- you- how dare you?" she started to get very angry, "Who do you think you are? In front of everyone and- my first- my first ever, you steal it like an ape! A tactless ape!" she swung her hand so fast at him that he didn't see it coming, the slap seemed to hurt even more than the first one.

"Ouch! Again? Really?" he complained.

"You appear in my dream and mess me up with your- your- you stupid ape! And if that wasn't enough you spy on me everyday, then you humiliate me in public and then, then, this? You come here?" she was raving, harrumphing and growling, "This must be a damned nightmare, I swear! I must be dreaming, there is no way! If you can force yourself into my life then I can do this and that too!" she ranted, waving her wand left and right, chairs around them turned into cats and dogs, curtains into thousands of rose petals gently raining down.

Daphne was so startled she recoiled and tripped over her chair, now a fat white cat meowing angrily. "What the!" she screamed, her eyes wide like saucers. Harry was surprised, that was new and weird.

She got up slowly, looking around them, baffled. "I really am dreaming. Oh my god, I'm awake in my own dream, that is so sweet."

"Let me get this straight for you, I am dreaming." he said, a bit miffed at her appropriation of his own thing despite being just a part of this thing, "You're a figment of my imagination, I'm the one creating you and all of this. And I'm probably trying to trick myself, too, because this is quite convincing."

"Mmh" she said, "Sounds like you're a fragment of my mind and I'm the one tricking myself, I'm afraid."

"The word is figment, not fragment, and I'm sure the real Daphne wouldn't make such mistakes."

"And I'm sure real Harry would understand that I used fragment on purpose to avoid repetition."

They stared at each other for a moment, unwilling to back down.

"Well, one of us is dreaming anyway, so the point is moot." said Daphne.

Harry nodded, it ultimately didn't matter, but it still was annoying. "Right, so we might as well snog for no particular reason.", he suggested.

She shrugged and smiled, "Absolutely."

* * *

 ** _Second Episode._**

* * *

Harry stretched and yawned soundly, he scratched his head and sat upright in his bed, satisfied of a good night's sleep. On his left, Daphne was latching onto him and in deep slumber, her platinum hair messy and hiding her eyes, her shoulder rising and dropping as she breathed. He smiled with affection, and then jumped.

"Jesus!" he shouted, and she woke with a start as well.

"Wha-what's going on?" she mumbled and looked at her night gown, realizing the situation.

"Potter? What are you- what did you do to me?" she said weakly, almost fainting.

He shook his head so strongly it almost snapped, "Absolutely nothing, I'm positive we did not sleep together! I swear!"

She had her hand on her heart and began to have an anxiety attack of some sort until she stopped suddenly at the realization, "I must still be dreaming.", and then, Harry realized he was still dreaming.

He remembered clearly all the events that lead to this, he had gone to sleep hoping it would finish the dream, and Daphne definitely hadn't been here. "I probably dreamed of you or something." he said.

She nodded and agreed "Yes, I must have."

She then jumped of the bed and went for the window a foot from it, opened it; "I'll go back this way, this is a dream after all.", and clumb out of it. Harry ran to the opening and peered out of it, he saw her trotting on the rooftiles along the edge of the spires, slaloming around gargoyles like a daft cat.

He closed the window, dressed up and left the dormitory. Hermione found him again and mentioned the bathroom being taken over by crocodiles.

"Again?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

He told her about the other crocodile but she seemed to have forgotten. He convinced her to forget about it and go take breakfast with him. They met several people on the way there, and it would be an understatement to say something was amiss.

Fred & George Weasley were in their underwear, trotting on all four, held by Katie Bell via a leash, pretending to be dogs, but still talking human language. Katie laughed and laughed at their antics as they pulled her down the corridor. Draco was showing off a broom, apparently so unique and powerful that it was forbidden on quidditch pitches, with a price tag of a million galleons, which was more than the net worth of everyone in the castle's whole family combined, and he had a large crowd of people prepared to kneel and lick his boot for a touch of one of its straws. And when they almost got to the main hall, they met a small first year named Alnie Crox that had just wet herself, because the bathroom door was stuck and nothing she did could nudge it.

Through this all, Hermione didn't react in a significant way, but eventually she started mentioning that the last day had been weird.

"I feel... fuzzy, a little bit unsure at every step." she said, "I can't really explain it, but it's like, something's not right, or is it? Like... I'm sure that something is true, and it is true, but then I start doubting it... and I can't tell anymore. It's like I'm dreaming.", she said.

Harry stopped walking. Now that was starting to be really weird, was it just the theme of the dream, or... he had to wonder - the dream had been going for so long too, it was already highly irregular in this regard. "Dreaming, huh?"

"Yeah, like a dream, but not so pleasant, a little bit alien. But if I was dreaming, I ... I mean..." she stopped too. She looked around, she looked at him, and her face was sober. "I'm dreaming." she said flatly, spreading her arms out and lowering her stance like the floor was going to dissolve any moment. "Amazing, I never- never before! I think."

Harry frowned. "Mmmh. You might not believe it but you're not the first that realized this is a dream."

"You did?"

"Well, of course, I'm the dreamer, I meant from the other people."

She put her arms on her waist, "Harry, I just realized I'm dreaming, why would I believe you're the one dreaming?"

He made a swiping motion with his hand, "Doesn't matter whether you do or don't, what matters is; this is concerning. A lot of this is concerning, but I think I know a way out."

"But I don't want out." she commented, he ignored her.

"Follow me.", and he turned back around from where they went, Hermione excitedly trotting in his wake.

* * *

They found Malfoy after a little bit of searching, he was whispering something to Theodore Nott inbetween two giggles. "Malfoy, we have to talk." Harry declared.

"Again?", he asked then made a face that seemed like 'why did I say this?'

Harry answered, "Yes, again, as you might or might not remember, we spent some time together, me as your dad and then in a bathpool."

Draco looked at him strangely, cogs turning behind his eyes.

"Those weird things were not real, nor is this -", he pointed to Filius Flitwick that just passed them on a muggle bike, ringing his bell happily, "- it was, and is, a dream. You're dreaming."

Draco went through the same phase of disorientation as Hermione and ended up staring at him in disbelief; "Indeed I am, interesting, this was all... all a fabrication..."

"Yes." lied Harry, not about to give away his culpability. He turned to Hermione and whispered, "Now we should wake up, he's the pillar of this dream.", and they waited.

Then, against all expectations, nothing happened.

Harry frowned at Draco. "Well, wake up you pillock. What are you waiting for? We can't both be conscious and still... or can we?"

Draco looked at him with a mocking smile, "What in Merlin's name are you on about, Potter?"

"Arghh" groaned Harry as he squatted down. "Think, think, how to wake up?"

"This is my dream, so I can make you kiss my boots, Potter, how about you do that now?", Draco snickered.

Harry got up, walked to him, and slapped him across the face - for once, he wasn't on the receiving end - and he insisted: "Wake up, wake up, wake up!", punctuated by slaps, until Draco pushed him back, face red and tears welling under his eyes and got his wand out.

"Enough!" he started throwing hexes at him. Harry managed to dodge them and ran away, followed by Hermione who was laughing at this point.

* * *

 ** _Third Episode._**

* * *

The library had never been in this state. It was quiet, very quiet indeed, a few feet from its entrance, now closed shut and covered in nailed boards taken from the shelves, a few feet from it, behind her desk, was Madam Pince, eyes vacant and body stiff, laying on the wooden floor with a thin layer of dust on her. A little bit further, was a pile of books, taken off their shelves, and next to this one, another, several dozen piles of books, around a isle of four big tables put together on which dozens of open books, old parchments and everything inbetween were laying interwoven and one onto the others.

On one side of this makeshift raft of a workbench, Hermione Granger was writing notes down on a parchment, her finger tracing over a diagram in a tome, a frown on her face that showed concern more than reflection. And in front of her, flipping pages from a tome as wide as his shoulders, with an annoyed look, was Harry.

Hermione hadn't laughed for long, when she realized that they were trapped, Harry had to admit some of the truth, how he had used his counter-insomnia potion to draw other people in his dream, and she knew, she knew that she was real, so there was more to it than he would say. Regardless, they had no other recourse than studying, than finding what the soul rest potion is and how it works, in order to find a solution. Outside, the sun was settling down, it had been for so long she couldn't even tell.

"Found one possible after-effect of using pepper up during full moon phases, it makes one breathe hard sometimes during the night and can cause coughing that wake you up... reported by one person and not peer reviewed... whatever.", he said dully.

"Write it down, anything that has to do with any sort of sleeping disorder. Write it down." she ordered.

Harry groaned slightly but picked up his quill. A tremor shook the castle, a few books fell down from their piles, the chandelier sing-songed and liquid wax dripped from candles; then it was gone as fast as it came. "Everybody's going nuts out there." commented Harry, They were looking at the ceiling with concern and went back to researching sleeping potions and anything even remotely related to them without another word.

* * *

"Ah well, I was wrong I suppose." Hermione mused aloud after several hours must have passed, "I thought the Lem prime followed by an Aid prime in the same session were supposed to be an inverted session and could carry meaning of sleeping, consciousness fading, tiredness, and so on if used with another Lem-based session - but that doesn't seem to be the case in stupefy for one - I don't quite see it here... but then again, stupefy really is overengineered."

"What?" answered Harry

"You know, with the theorem of trickery, that is, Calloper's session or the theorem of double negatives - you might be more familiar with that."

"Hermione, I don't know the first thing about sessions, ok? I just wiggle my wand one way or another and magic comes out."

Hermione sighed. Something rustled behind the front desk, they snapped their head to it. "Madam Pince is waking up."

Harry stood up, stretched his legs and nonchalantly walked around the desk - Madam Pince was weakly moving her fingers and moaning. "Stupefy.", the spell exploded of bright red and slammed the almost-conscious book-keeper down into petrification. "We probably have to feed her eventually.", he suggested. Hermione didn't answer.

Harry walked around, prodding things and whistling tunes, trying to find a way to not get bored to death and avoiding the Great Tome of Unsuspected Aftereffects like the plague - until Hermione snapped and ordered him to sit down and do some research. Two huge pages later, she had enough of his sighs.

"Harry, we need to know what's the soul rest draught made of - so, either you look for it in books or you go find professor Snape and bring him here, how about that?"

"Uhh... I'm not sure what's worse..." he hesitated.

"Out! You're driving me nuts, I can't think with you around. Go out and find Snape, we should have done this right away in the first place, he might even have a simple cure on hand."

Ousted like so, Harry found himself on the other side of the library doors, hearing the loud thumps of Hermione's wandwork nailing back the boards on. He walked for a long time in the strangely deserted corridors, observing all kinds of detritus and abandoned belongings; down by the shortcut to the Sixth Spire of Salacious Serenades - in which the runic courses were given - there were many dozen over-sized chocolate frogs discarded along the edges, the size of a dog, some of them even almost as big as HP, and all of them lifeless, half-eaten or cut into pieces and melting slowly, the tiles were covered in an inch of chocolate and large streaks showed that the bodies had been dragged to the sides.

Abandoned clothes, a lot of them, robes and undergarments, some of them damp and laying in puddles of water, some of them torn apart; make-up items, for girls, smeared on the girl's bathroom and trashed on the floor in front of it, two whole boxes. Fruits and vegetables, carrots, oranges, some of them smashed and bleeding on the floor; pitchforks, spades, minepicks; broken chairs, books and newspaper by the hundred in the Hall of Trophies, where all the trophies had either been stolen or - he noticed the broken glass from the cases being angled in a way that implied they had broken out on their own.

Sometimes, when he got near the staircases, he would hear distant voices, shouting and laughing, reverberating from nowhere. Paintings were empty, only their background remained, relatively unchanged, he guessed - he hadn't really ever paid attention to them before.

As he was reaching the downward staircase that led to the dungeons, Myrtle, the ghost teenager popped out of the wall, startling HP a good deal.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Harry, didn't see you there. Are you normal?" she seemed out of it.

"I'm about normal, thank you, and you?"

"It's the worst, my bathroom's been taken over, I yell and I cry but they don't care - it's a real mad-house in there!"

"Who?"

"Damned if I know, a bunch of bimbos and bad kids, they are, they're turning everything upside down, I've never seen this many goats and sheep and whatever else they brought in. Did you come down to see me, my champion? That's very sweet of you." she switched gears and waved her eyelashes at him.

"I... no, I'm sorry, I really need to see Snape, that's why I'm down there."

She harrumphed. "I can help you find him, I suppose, if you give me something in return?"

Harry knew what she wanted, "Like what?"

For an answer she laughed horrifyingly and turned around him a few times, pretending to be too shy to ask for it, "A kiss, of course, from my champion."

"How about I give you your bathroom back in exchange?"

She pouted but agreed.

At his insistence, they separated to do both jobs at the same time; Myrtle could fly through walls and find Snape, hopefully, and Harry would go to the her bathroom and kick out the squatters. He reached it shortly, inside were a dozen older students, sixth and seventh years probably, having an all-out a party.

Harry was hailed as a champion when he entered, as it seemed most of them were more than a little bit inebriated - he made his best to slip through the numerous farm animals and shirtless wannabe quidditch players and butterbeer sippers, he blushed at the sight of one or two things that he had expected to see the second he set foot inside, and finally made it to the central sink, to which he parsel-commanded "Shahhshhhinnsashh".

His hiss didn't go unnoticed, but what really sobered up everyone was the sink morphing into a massive snake, its tongue made of plumbing, eyes a couple of sink holes, and a slow, creeping, crescendo hiss rising from its throat with undertones of creaking pipes and syphoned water echoing and gargling.

Within a few seconds, there was only hay, a few chickens, a couple of passed out students, and a sheep left to graze upon hundreds of empty bottles or sleep on the destroyed couches that had been somehow dragged in there. Harry thanked Salazar's sink-snake and sank his bottom in a couch as the beast coiled around itself and fell to rest. "Pretty sweet, huh, it just need to makes a little bit of sense, I guess." he said to the closest chicken, it batted a wing a few times in response.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, two lifeless black holes were staring back, through glasses - with an uncommon intensity, and closeness - a bare inch from his face was another, although he could kind of see through it. He jumped and got out of the couch.

"Myrtle, how long you been here?"

"You were so cute, I didn't want to wake you."

"T-thanks," he swallowed. "I got your bathroom back, did you find Snape?"

She hovered back up, "I have. But someone else found him first, the Weasley twins.", she said with visible disgust, "They captured him and are tormenting him in the Westward Yard of Winces"

"Tormenting? Doesn't sound good."

"It isn't. They cast so much magic to trap him into a labyrinth they became trapped themselves, if I wasn't dead already I might have died in there - they messed around with chronomancy from what I could tell."

"Chronomancy? Like, time magic? Time turners?"

"I suppose so, I wouldn't recommend getting close to the west aisle at all, I've seen a dozen students trapped in it and looping around the same shortcuts forever."

Harry thought about this. It didn't make any sense to him, but he'd head her warning. Thinking about time turners, though, reminded him of Sirius and the last year's adventure, of Albus Dumbledore. "I suppose Dumbledore is as good an option, if not better."

He said goodbye to the ghost and began a trek to the upper levels of the castle, making sure of steering away from the western regions. He crossed the path of a couple disoriented people and saw different kinds of aftermaths laying here and there in the wake of unbridled students; and as he reached the east corridor of the Three by Three Pyracorridors - it was just a series of nine corridors and staircases, really - of which the headmaster's office was the center-piece, the rumble of a torrent started to tickle his eardrums; just a very faint rumbling, growing bigger at every step, then, falling appart in multiple facets of sounds, each bouncing differently from the walls and suits of armor - and when he was in the staircase, he understood that he was hearing the voice of a hundred voices, and more.

A common roar of hundreds of people, crying out in different intonations, at different levels and intensities. It was a crowd comparable to that of a quidditch finale, at least as many teenagers as there were students in Hogwarts, but none of them were known to Harry, their robes were standard and carried the house emblems but they were definitely not students here. They were enraged, jeering and wailing at Dumbledore's door and walls, banging their fists against it and chanting madly.

Harry couldn't even get past the first dozen, they responded to none of his input and shoved him back, making him fall on his arse. From there, through hundreds of legs, he saw the very center of this crowd, the eye of the hurricane, he saw Dennis Criveey, the little boy, in a foetus position, his head folded in his knees and is hands on his ears, he was silently rocking sideways and ignoring - trying to ignore, the mayhem.

Harry turned around, already feeling pangs of panic due to the sheer noise, it was a lost cause.

In the Crescent Corridor, going back toward the library, he caught a whiff of familiar scent and looked up above him. Luna was on the rafters, merely a feet above him, and scribbling things in a notepad. "Luna, fancy seeing you here.", he announced himself.

She sat toward him and let her legs dangle, "Oho! Harry, what do I owe the pleasure to?"

"Well, nothing really, I'm just walking here. What are you up to, up there?"

"I'm doing a sudoku."

"What's that?"

"It's a game of deduction." she answered plainly.

"Mh." said Harry.

"You look fairly okay, you interested in taking refuge with Hermione and me in the library?"

She raised her eyebrows, "Refuge? What from?"

Harry shrugged, "Everyone else, I guess. Haven't you noticed?"

"Oh, them. The rafters are quite safe but... why not hang out with you, sure."

They strolled together toward the library until they came to a total stop in front of what could only be described as a cheap horror movie being shot in the Staircases Hall, Harry paled and Luna uttered her apologies as well as goodbies and left by the rafters in a way that Harry could not hope to, as if she had grown wings.

* * *

His rear-end fell into the rich wine-red armchair, his back slumped miserably as he crumbled and let out a moan and a whisper at the same time. His arms dangling from each side, the tip of his fingers made contact with the floorboards - warmed up by the roaring fireplace.

"So?", Hermione inquired, waving her wand. The boards and nails assembled once again against the door. Thumps did not echo much inside the room, now littered with piles of books.

He told her about Snape and Dumbledore - his inability to even come in contact with either, and some other details. "- how exactly did Lavender know the stench of several rotting bodies? I mean, not only blood, there was like the yellow fat and green, grey stuff, gooey and - "

"Stop, Harry, for the love of Merlin I've heard enough!" she complained loudly, looking green herself. "This is nothing short of disgusting, I don't want to hear it."

"Well I had to crawl through it so that's not very fair."

Hermione went for the window and took a break in the cold wind. "I found interesting things while you were... out." she said and beckoned him to the worktable, where she had compiled impressive amounts of parchments. "What you told me... I think it fits." she explained.

"How do you mean?" said Harry.

"When you told me about Snape and Dumbledore just now, you said - in passing - it's just as if the dream tries to stop me. I think it is the case, in a technical sense, look here.", she handed him a large sheet covered with her own handwriting and narrated it as he read:

"What I found numerous references to and finally uncovered in Zalam's Thirty True Tales - and additionally in -"

"Hermione, cut the details out." he pleaded, his eyes running across the sheet.

"- anyways, I found out that when someone is dreaming, their subconscious is what sets up the dream, and when they become aware of it, they get to control it with their conscious but not fully, it's only a partial control, a lot of it is still subconscious business. In two works, I found clear warnings, although why those warnings were given is a bit hard to catch... Warnings, Harry, that it is considered very dangerous to dream with more than one other dreamer."

Harry listened quietly, trying to make sense of the writings at the same time.

"The catch here, is sleep cycles; Thankfully, I found a complete enough description of that concept in Crystalline Wonders, on the passage of dream crystals.", she pointed to an eagle-spread tome on his right. "Sleep cycles, I understand, are almost totally unknown to almost everyone. It's really obscure stuff, I only found it in this one book." she said giddily, clearly enjoying it.

"Good job." Harry answered nonplussed

"So, the bit on dream crystals didn't really explain it, you see, it described it and I read between the lines. Basically, that's a fact, sleep cycle is the heartbeat frequency of a dreamer times their magical echo, that is how it is measured to tune dream crystals. It's a measure that's almost never mentioned but weirdly enough, it uses the Libello unit, li, and I found this unit used in some other instances... The resonance charm and some tempered crystals are used in accordance to libello units. Anyway, the thing with sleep cycle is; when several dreamers share a dream, their sleep cycles mess up the continuity of the dream."

"Oh", he answered. She was starting to lose him.

"With two dreamers, it's a non-issue, because two sleep cycles are almost necessarily divisible by - I quote - a reasonably high greatest common denominator. And in the off-chance that they would not be divisible, the subconsciouses actually synch up to find one anyway, it's not a closed, definitive frame."

Harry nodded, he didn't really get it.

"That much is pretty straightforward in the book. However, when there's more people, it becomes really tough to have a GCD, and the subconsciouses become unable to find something to latch onto and synch up, not to mention the leeway it's working which may not allow for a GCD anyways, you see that's my three diagrams here - I think this might translate in a general sense of the dream fighting against individuals." she pointed on the sheet.

"I see."

"That's when the dream crystals come in play, mostly. You'd get everyone to hold one, have them sleep, and synch them up with some imitation charm, and the crystals would resonate with one another way further than the sleep cycles would naturally do. It's supposed to be done before dreaming, but there's no reason it can't be done within the dream other than the very nature of dreams that complicates it."

"Mh."

She finally breathed in and sat next to him. "So, the dream is not ending because we have too many people, and their sleep cycle cannot synchronize with the mainline frequency, as I dubbed it. It's not a real thing though, it's more like... the spectrum in which we could all synch."

Harry rubbed his chin. "Wouldn't we be able to divide anything by one? Hence we'd have a common denominator.", she shook her head.

"I haven't really understood what's the role of that denominator or how the arithmancy plays out, so I don't know. The book is clear, though, two times, it says; suitably high greatest common denominator. Suitably high could mean anything except one. And if that worked, we wouldn't be stuck here." she concluded.

"So, we need those sleep crystals?"

Hermione nodded, "There might be some in Hogwarts, if not, we'll have to get some anyhow. But before that, we must find out who's a dreamer and who's not."

He raised his eyebrows at that. He'd forgotten. "Hermione, the truth is, there's only two dreamers here, one is me, and the other is Malfoy. I have my reasons for that, I'll tell you later, but I really only laced his drink with the potion."

"But -" she started before thinking deeper.

A moment passed and she raised her eyes to him.

"How did you do it, exactly?"

Harry winced and shrugged, "I kind of... I kind of asked Dobby to put it in his bedrest pitcher."

"Harry! How could you! That's not... that's not acceptable! That poor little thing! He probably punished himself so much!"

"No, no, don't worry, he's just fine! He likes it!"

"Shut it, Harry, shut it!" she angrily swatted at his head until he ducked and made no more sounds. She was at the edge of tears, sniffing heavily, but quickly recovered. "Then, it is possible that Draco shared some of that to other people, or even, Dobby might have misunderstood and sent the drink to the Slytherin common room - although that doesn't explain me drinking it..."

"We could go ask him." he suggested.

Hermione sent him a death glare but nodded. They left the library.

* * *

 ** _Sorry, it took me way too long to finish this. I hope someone's still reading._**

 ** _Feet fact: in all 206 bones there is in the average human, 54 are in the feet._**


	3. Chapter Final

**Disclaimer: I make no money.**

* * *

 ** _Chapter Three. Final._**

* * *

 _ **First Episode**_

* * *

"And a twenty types of thyme make do with thirty sorts of sauerkraut! And fourty brands of brandy along with fifty fashions of fa- "

"Dobby!" yelled Hermione and Harry together at the busy crowd in the kitchens, attempting to overdo the ambient noise.

The elf heard them and trotted to their knees, panting.

"Elf D, the task I have given you, how did it go?" Harry asked immediately.

The elf first didn't answer, his eyes and cheeks bulged as he force a hand on his lips, then he started to dance on the spot as if he was about to blow up, then, he did blow up - in tears, wailing and rasping his knuckles on the spotless kitchen tiles, now fallen on his knees. "Elf D messed up, master! Elf D though the pitcher was going to Draco Malfoy but it was not, someone... someone took it to the wrong place!", he cried terribly and started to smash his head on the floor repeatedly, "Bad elf! bad elf!", to which Hermione responded immediately and begged him to stop hurting himself.

"Where did the pitcher go, then, Dobby?", she asked in a gentle tone.

Elf D rose his puffy eyes and muttered his answer in a broken voice, "To the jule ball buffet."

Hermione and Harry both swore aloud, Elf D stared pitifully at the bloody ground.

"We have to - we have to grab anyone that drank from that pitcher, there was only one, correct, Dobby?" she started, slightly panicked.

The elf nodded

" - so we have to grab those people and ignore everyone else, and - and - wait...", she stopped suddenly, turning her eyes to Dobby.

Harry saw her expression turn to stone and into a distrusting, revolted sneer.

"You... you haven't drunk from the pitcher. So, you aren't real." she stated flatly, "You're just telling us what we want to hear."

"I didn't want to hear that.", argued Harry, but she didn't pay attention to him.

"We can't trust you at all." she stated.

The elf stared at her in confusion for a moment, then at nothing, sniffed, and jumped slightly. "Of course, friend of Harry Potter, I have drunk of the pitcher. Elves are required to taste everything before served - it is Hogwarts policy! I have personally tasted over two hundred meals and fifty drinks!"

Hermione's eyelids stayed squinted at the small being. "Mmmh." she said, "There's something about this... something that doesn't sit with me."

"Hermione, he seems to have drunk from it, and, well - we don't have anything else to go by right now." Harry argued.

Hermione seemed to agree but still wasn't quite there. "I feel like something isn't right, but I'll go along with it."

"Let us assemble as many people as we can and discuss who drank from the pitcher or not." he concluded.

* * *

Around the large table in the library, now pooled in clear and bright morning sunlight, were more than a dozen faces, more or less grim looking; Directly to Harry's right, Daphne, he had trouble even looking at her - the realization that she had been real since the beginning now hitting him at full force, the precedent intimate moment they had shared was just as real. She looked a little bit grim, probably unaware of the extent of what was transpiring now.

Draco was here too, looking unconcerned and tapping his fingers on the wood, Ginny, Ron and Neville were pretty grim and staring at Harry intently, Luna next to them was smiling brightly, Moody looked about to murder everybody, Carmac, Cedric and Cho Chang looked worried, Seamus was trying to make small talk with Ginny, professor Sprout had taken the other end of the table as sort of a chief spot, Viktor Krum and Katie Bell were both isolated and blank-faced.

"You." started Harry, "Are our elite force. You're all that we could gather, and everything is up to us." he paused.

No one talked.

He slapped a long twig he had found in the corridors against a chalkboard, dragging everyone's eye to the crude drawing there was on it.

"Vat is that?" Krum asked in visible confusion.

"Looks like.. an eclipse or something?" proposed Katie.

"No, you idiots, it's a pitcher!" groaned Harry, earning quite a few giggles and sneers.

"I could draw a better one with my eyes closed." mocked the crowd.

Harry ignored them exasperatedly, "Anyway, this, my friends, is the object of interest. You are all aware that we are dreaming, now." they all nodded and grunted affirmatives, "We have to figure out who is real, and who isn't. This pitcher is the key." Moody shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "We need to retrace the life of this pitcher during the jule ball, to find out who drank from it and who did not."

"Ah." scoffed the old Moody finally, "And what would it mean, drinking from this pitcher or not?"

"Those who haven't, are fake."

Moody chortled suddenly, "Well, obviously I have drunk from it so I'm real, but that doesn't make much sense."

Harry squited his eyes, "As a matter of fact, you've been drinking solely from that little pocket flask of yours ever since I first met you, I find it strange that you'd drink from the pitcher!", he accused.

On this, startling everyone, Moody slammed his meaty hands on the wooden table and rose up, he bellowed his outrage at the top of his lungs, "How dare you call me a fake? Me, of all people!"

Harry recoiled in shock but maintained his accusation, "That's something a fake would say!"

Red-faced Moody whipped his wand out and spat with a high pitched, angry hiss "Avada Kedavra!", but Harry had already dived under the table as soon as the wand had come out, and only his seat was killed - it really just quivered slightly. On that, the man roared "You'll never take me alive! Ah ah ah!" and jumped right through the window, laughing like a madman.

Harry got back out of the underside of the table, everyone had drawn their wands to fight Moody, he shrugged, "I suppose we all agree that Moody was fake?"

"Most likely." agreed Sprout and the rest of them nodded evidently.

They sat down again.

"To the pitcher, then." started Harry, "I'll start, my experience with the pitcher begins at around one in the morning, as you all know, I was slapped by Greengrass here present as well as Ginny present here."

Ginny and Ron groaned the affirmative and Daphne nodded.

"I was at the pitcher for a good twenty minutes before that, but nobody drank from it in this time until Greengrass did."

Daphne then talked, "It wasn't my first time around that pitcher, actually, I was talking with the Headmaster when he brought the pitcher here - I can also confirm that he had drunk from it, I suspect he was actually quite drunk although he hid it very well."

"Ah!" said Househead Sprout, "Indeed I must confirm this as well. I have shared many a drink from this very pitcher with Albus moments before that, I believe around half to midnight. We were interrupted by Mr. Krum here present, he served himself a glass from the pitcher."

"Ah, so Viktor is confirmed real." acquiesced Harry.

Hermione interjected: "No, wait. Viktor doesn't like pumpkin juice, he was getting me a drink!"

Krum grimly nodded, "Aye, is truth."

"Which means... Viktor is fake." concluded Harry flatly, his arms up in a half-shrug.

The boy rose up angrily, "I sailed to this country not to be called fake!"

"Sorry, Viktor, sorry, let's drop it." urged Hermione

Everyone fell silent except from Krum, still grunting.

"That makes me think, you know who else doesn't like pumpkin juice?" Daphne said, drawing everyone to her angelic voice masterfully, "Draco. He hates it, I've heard that enough at breakfast. Draco is fake."

On this, Draco tsk'ed, "Whatever you say, this pitcher stuff is suspicious in the first place."

Harry didn't listen to him, he was hit by a very strange thought; if Malfoy was fake, then the part about the bath, the part about being naked in there and all that... it didn't come from Malfoy but from himself? That was a very shocking and confusing thing indeed.

"Wait a minute." shouted Hermione a little bit too loud. Her eyebrows were uncharacteristically high. "Harry."

Harry turned to her with a question mark on his face.

"Dobby was supposed to spike Draco's bedrest pumpkin juice pitcher... which is how it ended up at the jule ball buffet.", she stared at him in the eyes and for the first time, he saw in them something new - fear. "If Draco doesn't like pumpkin juice, he doesn't get it to his bedrest, now, does he?" her tone was getting louder, "Then what exactly was Dobby trying to do in the first place?" she commanded, visibly shaken. "Is Greengrass making this up?"

"No, that's not possible, she definitely drank from the pitcher, I saw her. We both drank from it." he assured, "Mabye we should go ask Dobby for clarifications."

Hermione exploded when he uttered the elf's name, "Dobby can go dunk himself for all I care! There is no reason he'd have actually drunk from the pitcher, there's no reason to believe him, he's fake a thousand times over! He can't help us, he's just- he's just a red herring! I mean, hell, the whole pitcher incident might be a total fabrication! Like I said, he says what we want to hear!"

Similarly to her, almost everyone started throwing a tantrum and talking louder than the other, slamming the table and arguing over the meaning of it all. Hermione was getting even angrier by the second, Harry was getting fed up with it and commanded some quiet.

"Enough! Enough!", he called, "Enough already! Quiet down, the lot of you, Harry, simmer the hell down for Merlin's sake! There is no reason to get mad, not at all. Relax, this - everything, it already happened before, I already went through this, and everything went just fine." he explained when he finally had them to shut up.

It had already happened before actually, he had messed up a few times, as he'd had told Elf D earlier to convince him, and this special shared-pitcher-incident was not a first. "Last time this happened, it all sorted itself out and we all forgot about it. This -"

"Harry." said Hermione blankly. "You're saying this isn't the first time you spike the whole school with the soul rest draught?"

"Well, yes, basically I was trying to spike George and Fred in the great hall and... well I messed up and a pitcher ended up spiked. That pitcher traveled down the table and went onto the other tables because Huffies had broken theirs, and then Ravies got it because of the schism between some people - their own was owned by half their table, then the Slythies took it just to not feel left out and piss us off, I think, anyway, we all dreamt together and it went just fine eventually."

"Harry, you..." said Hermione, white as a sheet, "Do you remember how we left that dream? Be extremely accurate."

Harry shrugged, "Well, we...", he paused, confused, "I can't really remember anything about it, it was long ago."

"When, when was it?"

"First year, really early too, I was all excited about discovering what this potion could do beside putting me to sleep."

Hermione held herself to the table, her skin was pale, her eyes quivering and her breath ragged, "Do you also not remember the other dreams?"

Harry thought about it and felt a creeping uneasiness about all this. "No, that's weird... all of them I remember somewhat clearly, really. Variable clarity but none forgotten. Strange, what could it...", he trailed off as Hermione stopped paying him attention.

Hermione started laughing.

Everybody kept very quiet, for there was no mirth in her laugh, it was unhealthy, it was twisted and mad, it was a laughter that itched the ear. It wasn't extremely loud, nor was it quiet, but it was cut by incoherent, giggle-rythmed mumbling at first, soon forming coherent thoughts for all to hear.

"Of course... I always wondered, I always felt it... Wasn't it strange to you, Harry?"

Harry didn't answer, he was scared both for her and himself.

"It never made sense, none of it, it was so silly, so infantile, I always wondered... how it could be so.. how could Dumbledore be so incompetent... and no one seemed to care, no one seemed to see it - I thought it was me, I thought I was holding everyone to much too high standards, I thought there was a vast depth of things I didn't know, hidden from me, that explained it all... so childish, Harry!" she yelled, focusing on him, and continued:

"The traps for the philosopher stone, centered around the six odd things we actually knew at that time, the Devil's Snare, Quidditch, god damn Chess and a stupid deduction riddle! Never have you wondered what in god's name that was all about?

"I did! It kept me from sleeping, as I realized that none of those would have possibly been put here to stop the Dark Lord from getting his hands on the stone, not even stall him! It made no sense! Was Dumbledore just toying with us? The mirror you already knew by coincidence! Of course! Then the next year, a basilisk, Harry! A bloody basilisk, king of the snakes, kills in a stare and can swallow dozens of bodies in the same time, but no, it wouldn't kill anyone, of course not! Ah ah ah!", she threw her arms in the air,

"Not even a bloody cat! It only just happened to petrify a few of us through sheer luck because we were looking at it through a mirror or some other dumb coincidence, and it just slithered away, I guess! It just left! Why would a giant snake actually eat its preys? Did Ginny have any control over it? Did the diary? There's no way in hell that made any sense, not to mention you went and slew the thing with a sword, age twelve!

"Then we'd just save your godfather that happened to be Sirius Black with a time turner, sure, turn time around and see ourselves in the past, whatever, then you go and become the youngest Triwizard Champion of all time, whatever... whatever." she giggled madly.

"It always bugged me, in the deepest part of me, how nonsensical most of our life was, but now it makes perfect sense, clear and irrefutable." she opened her arms and looked at the crowd with a large, crazed smile, inhaled deeply and yelled at the top of her lungs:

"We've been dreaming for four years! This dream, right there, isn't even one!"

Everybody started looking at each other, seeing the possibility that she was not just insane but also correct.

She kept on rambling, "It's just another thing in the dream! Pitcher incident number two doesn't matter in the slightest, it's all about pitcher incident number one! Anybody who drank from it four years ago has been dreaming with us, everyone else is fake! Don't you see?

"All the teachers have been fake for four years! Of course!" she yelled. "None of them drank from the pitcher four years ago, they had their own! None of what they taught us is tangible! It's all hogwash we thought up ourselves! None of the book we've read were real! How could they be? We're all dreaming! None of the magic we've been learning and doing is real! Ah ah ah!

"Sleep cycles are total nonsense! Prime movements, signals and sessions don't mean jack! Intent and discontinued intent is a fantasy! IT'S ALL FAKE!" she screamed to break her throat, "This is fake! Incendio!", her wand spat a massive jet of fire to the table, everyone yelled and scurried away,

"This is fake too! Confringo!", bits of flaming books and wood flew all over the library, "And this! And this!" she kept going, throwing increasingly dangerous hexes around until even Harry had to evacuate the library and flee away, his mind spinning.

Because he knew, he knew she just might be right, as she usually was.

* * *

 ** _Second Episode._**

* * *

People were getting more desperate, weaker, but also stronger in their own downward dive - the uncontrolled, unavoidable descent and collapse of everything was as strongly defined as anyone wanted it to be so - and so, or at least he thought, Harry found footing, and he walked forward, looking for a solution.

* * *

 ** _Third Episode._**

* * *

"Alohamora.", mumbled a cloaked figure in the desolated Westward Passageway, as if the shadows of the decorated pillars could hear him. Deadbolts moved, two of them, with a sharp noise, and a curtain of dust parted from the arched door as it slowly hinged inward, due to the unlevel floor. They put their hand against the panel and helped it open fully, revealing a dark room, lit by three candles still burning out of a hundred bits of molten wax, on the cupboard, the tables, the chairs, all unmoved for weeks.

"Who goes there?" rasped a wary voice. Harry revealed his face and closed the door behind him.

"It's only me, Ron."

The boy approached, his hair wild and eyes dull. "Is it? Is it really you, Harry Potter, or only looking like you? Is it you from now, tomorrow or yesterday? Is it the you that knows - of all this.", he gestured to the room and spun slightly on himself, "Or one that does not?", he got closer and squinted at Harry, "Or is it her, a piece of her, a manipulation of hers, a projection of her?"

Harry looked at him gravely, as if understanding fully - he had no idea what Ron was talking about, "Just me, the regular, present me."

Ron gave a non-committal grunt and offered him a seat as he went back to a bench in the corner, by the window.

"Screamers all over the school... what brings you here?"

Harry shrugged. "I wanted to see you, we're good friends aren't we?"

"Aye, I think so."

"Good." said Harry.

A moment passed.

"Can't offer you nothing to drink, I've been all out of everything for a while now."

"Where's your wand?"

"Lost, she took it, or maybe I misplaced it, can't tell. Hermione, I mean, she's been here, some times, maybe not, I'm no better than the rest of 'em, you know, been screaming too, on occasions."

"Oh."

Harry looked at him cautiously, and conjured a cup of water for Ron, the boy all but jumped on it and drank amorously. "Elves have gone, no one's left, nothing to eat or drink." he summed up in between two mouthful as Harry replenished the cup. "Couldn't get anywhere, there's a screamer by the end of the passageway, and Hermione, she's screaming too, she's playing... either that or I'm the one screaming, I make sense, though, don't I?"

"I think so."

"What is going on? Harry, you know it, I can tell."

Harry sighed deeply. "Not really. That's what I wanted to tell you about, I need someone to talk to, Hermione went complete nuts and I don't... I don't know what to do. You know I've been thinking about it and Hermione is probably right about it all, but I can't really find evidence for or against her theory - I was hoping we could work together."

He got up and started pacing, a candle gave its last breath and disappeared.

"Assuming it's true, and we really have been dreaming for so long, everything we know is false. I mean everything we learned here - so I've been thinking, then I can only work with what I knew before, right, such as basic logic and mathematics - but then!

Ron straightened up.

"But then, I realized that people like you, you knew a lot more stuff from before, you had knowledge of magic before the school, so we can work with that. But here's the problem, wouldn't you have noticed everything was weird?"

Ron shook his head.

"Maybe not, I suppose you didn't exactly know all that much in the first place."

"What about teachers?"

"No, they're fake, can't be trusted."

Ronald pondered for a minute. "Older students, then. Cedric would have memory of a couple more years than us."

Harry brightened suddenly, "Yes! Correct! The fact that those older students went along with it - as in, they lived the same reality as us - proves that it couldn't have been a fake reality! At least if I can confirm that they drank from the First Pitcher."

"What are we waiting for, then?" grinned Ron, a spark of lucidity in his eyes.

Harry laughed nervously, a genuine smile on his lips. "Getting somewhere! Alright, so, that damn pitcher, let's jog down memory lane. I remember the event decently enough, I passed the pitcher to our right, down the table, after having dropped the vial down it. The only ones on our left that drank from it were Fred & George - whom I served before handing it down to Lavender, so anyone from our left will -"

He stopped.

"No one on my left would be real. Not Neville Longbottom, not Parvati Patil, ... not Ronald Weasley. Come on..."

Ron understood him after a short delay, he stared at him blankly.

"If that whole mess is true, then you're not, Ron. It's one or the other. Assuming we go with the Pitcher One Theory, right now, you'd only be a fabrication of my mind.", Harry laughed almost deliriously, "I'd be basically talking to myself right now, everything you've been saying and thinking would be what - a piece of my mind, a mirror or my thoughts - I suppose in a way, a channel, a -"

But Ron interrupted him, on a much quieter tone, "A catalyst to your subconscious to converse with your conscious."

"Yeah, ridi -"

"-culous, is it not? I'd be only a shadow of your tongue."

"A mental picture gone too far."

"An afterthought born physical."

"You wouldn't even be physical, only my senses would think so."

"A self-inflicted trickery."

Harry opened his mouth, unable to stop his mind's mesmerizing racing, but Ronald spoke his words, "An alter-ego."

Harry talked again, his voice not his, "A delusion."

And with finality, Ronald and him both spoke together, their voice, intonation and inflection so exactly similar they melted into one, "A redundancy."

Ragged breathing only was heard, Harry's mind was spinning, he was grasping the edge of the wooden desk so hard his joints were white. Ron smiled, a soft, sad smile, close his eyes, and a gust of wind rushed through the ajar door. And under Harry's wide open eyes, slowly, gradually, like a transfiguration dispelled, Ronald was whisked away in the wind; a thousand shards, peeling away like dead leaves, made of nothing but air.

Harry screamed.

* * *

 _ **Fourth Episode.**_

* * *

He crossed another name on his notepad. The conversation he had just held with Cedric had had no tail nor head, the man obviously had his sanity, somewhere behind the numerous layers of distrust and sarcasm, but he wasn't willing to use it for Harry, he had other businesses going on, and only inane nonsense to spout at Harry. Older students were the worst of the bunch, thus far. The few things he had gleaned out of them so far could not be fully trusted as he had no idea if they were making sense.

He tossed the notepad on the ground. It was automn, it had been for a year at least, at least for Harry. In other places and for other people, it was more, or less, or not even autumn at all. Anyways, the notepad slid and pushed twigs and bits of crunchy leaves. He tutted in the air. How was he still sane? Maybe he wasn't anymore than the others, maybe everyone felt like him.

"What am I even try to do, anyway?" he asked the ceiling of stones and leaves-less honeysuckle. Even if he did find some truth about real magic, it wouldn't even come close to help figuring out a way out. "Dream cycles..." he whispered, "If only.". Hermione had come up with a perfectly believable solution, to bad it was absolutely baseless and thus, useless.

"What are dream cycles?" asked a girl's voice, familiar to his ears.

"Luna, I knew I'd see you sooner or later."

"This is my part of the castle.", answered his blonde schoolmate, looking no worse than she ever did.

"Your part?"

"I claimed it."

"Mmh", frowned Harry, "I've seen some screamers around, and aren't Theodore and Malfoy the self-proclaimed Lords of that tower?", he pointed to the Crooked Spire.

Luna shook her head, "That was a long time ago, they have been evicted."

"Evicted?"

"There was a war, although short."

"They lost?"

"I won."

Harry laughed. "What about the screamers?"

Luna shook her head, "They are content enough with being left alone, I'd rather not involve myself, you know how grumpy they get." She sat down next to him. "So, dream cycles?"

"Mmmh, Hermione's made up solution to this conundrum."

"Conundrum, nine letters, a vexed question." she sing-songed.

"Exactly."

"Made up, so, ultimately pointless, yes?"

"Unfortunately so. I've been looking for a correct one ever since she went screaming, and I'm still fruitless."

"Here.", she conjured a pear and Harry caught it.

"Thank god dreams don't care about the fundamental laws of conjuration."

"Assuming such a thing exists in the first place." she highlighted.

Harry snorted, "Right."

"I've met Hermione some time ago. She is doing very complex experimental work."

"Is she? She knows better than anyone that it's all based on her own fabulations."

"I suppose she decided to ignore it. I wonder how's Ginny, have you seen her at all?"

On that, Harry shivered slightly. "Put herself in some sort of contraption... turned her into a... noodle-like thing. She's just been slithering around, I have no idea whether it's a fantasy or a nightmare, I didn't dare asking."

Luna raised her eyebrows, munching on her own pear. "But, you know, Hermione might be correct in her efforts. It doesn't matter whether it makes sense or not, if she can make it work, wouldn't it work?", she chanced.

Harry thought about it and found himself nodding, but dubious. "Convincing herself that some solution works, it might actually then become an effective solution, I can't tell since I don't know jack about real magic, I'm sure even a muggle could dream up what she's been dreaming up, and surely that wouldn't make it real. But knowing Hermione, she won't be able to truly convince herself, because she knows already that it's all fake."

"But this dream was made without knowledge of magic, by you. So, why would it need knowledge of magic to end?"

"I...", Harry thought, he was getting confused. "I don't think it has all that much to do with me."

"Oh but it does, Harry, don't you feel it after all this time?"

"Feel it?"

"How everything around you is consistent and solid, how everything away from you is fuzzy and chaotic, you are the pillar, the center, it's quite obvious."

Harry had realized that people somehow reacted to him better than they would other things and people, "If you say so."

He thought. And more. For a long time, he thought, and Luna sat next to him, making jewelry out of twigs and berries and humming a convoluted melody. "So, I'm lost. But what I get from this, is, our best try would be to try and convince me of a solution, then execute that solution, and maybe that will do something?"

She cocked her head, "I suppose so."

"So how do we do that?"

"Mmmh, well, you're the pillar, what happens to the dream if we remove the pillar, you think?"

"Remove the pillar? How do you mean?"

Luna whipped her wand out and stabbed it in HP's mouth in a swift, accurate motion. "How do you destroy a pillar? A confrigo should do the trick."

Harry gulped, her eyes were of steel and fire, serious and playful. He stuttered over her wand tip, feeling it press against his palate and tasting echoes of magic, "No! I mean - it won't work anyways. Nobody dies, here, I think. I've seen a lot of should-be-death that turned into either nothing or something worse than death, but never, never someone was 'destroyed' as you put it."

"Doesn't matter, they are not the pillar."

"You and your pillar, what's that all about anyways, why would I even listen to you? Did you even drink from the pitcher?", he ranted, and he realized, this time barely surprised.

"Of course not, Harry, I'm one year younger than you."

"And everyone younger than me is fake, of course." he concluded flatly.

She smiled and retreated her wand. "Listen to yourself, Harry, destroy the pillar.", then she stepped into his personal space, leaned forward, pressed her lips against his, and as he felt her touch, she was no more.

"Luna... never even existed?" Harry didn't notice the tear on his cheek. "Ginny - Ginny neither."

"Oh, to hell with this all.", he put his own wand tip to his temple. He didn't hear the sickening crunch of his head being crushed, only silence and darkness.

* * *

 ** _Final Episode._**

* * *

He sat up in his bed. His vision, balance, hearing, it was all incredibly sharp, the world was so solid, the air so thick and clear at the same time, his breathing so natural, it blew him away. Then, as he took notice of his small hands and tiny wrists - his irises adapting to the pitch-black quietness, his ears picked up a creak, a squeak of a voice, turning into a more sustained groan, and soon, a scream.

Two screams, three then more than he could differentiate, young prepubescent voices were wailing. He fumbled around, his nerves alit by the cries, for his glasses. He heard something fall, he heard long-forgotten familiar voices shout muffled things, hurried footsteps carrying lightweight bodies out of the room, then, glass shattering, yells, "What is going on?", "Stop it!", "Help!", Harry was frozen, his hand on his glasses, he was strangely conscious, strangely aware, but obviously his housemates weren't.

Was it a dream?

No, not this time. For the first time as long as he could remember, this felt real. Guilt. Fear. He didn't move a muscle and stood hidden in his protective cocoon of drapes and pillows for several dozen minutes, hearing various events from tantrums being thrown, things getting broke, magic being accidentally all over the place, adults stepping in, impromptu and quickly finished duels, anger and confusion, and a good hour later, someone opened the curtains to his bed and invited him out.

"Take your shower and go down the common room, Potter, Househead McGonagall is down here - don't worry there's a big mess but it'll get sorted out.", the prefect moved on to the next closed bed, the last one.

Numbly, and yet feeling every drop of water more accurately than ever before, Harry took his shower and joined the sane people in the common room, where they were served hot chocolate until he asked McGonagall to bring him to Dumbledore, which she did within the half hour.

"- and that's how everyone ended up drinking the draught that evening." he concluded his story, head bent downward in shame, in front of Headmaster Dumbledore and Potionmaster Snape.

The two older men looked at each other thoughtfully. "Albus -" started Snape.

"Yes, I know, this is entirely wrong isn't it?"

Snape nodded, "Yes. The Soul Rest Draught holds no such power."

"Professor, I -", started Harry only to be rudely interrupted by a lot less amicable Dumbledore that he remembered:

"Shush, child. Let us think."

He swallowed his pride and realized humbly that he actually knew very little of the real Dumbledore or the real Snape, the two characters had been almost entirely made up past the initial few weeks he had known them.

The Headmaster nodded. "Yes, I believe this is simply a case of accidental magic, not unseen before, but certainly rare. Let's see, this, precisely, I would call paranoia-induced accidental subconscious somniancy outburst."

"Paranoia induced?" inquired Snape.

"Yes, you see, it's typical of young folks like this, popularity issues, and so on."

Ignoring completely Harry, the Headmaster invited McGonagall in the office as well as a man Harry had never seen, apparently not from Hogwarts, and told them his take on the matter, with much less bravado than Harry was used to from him.

"Accidental magic from first year students is typical and we usually have no issues dealing with it, you see.", he assured the stranger, "But in some cases it's more insidious and, well, exotic. Mister Potter here, basically has been subconsciously sequestrating half of the student body for several years within a fake reality, unbeknownst to even himself, I figure. From what we understand, as long as Harry didn't figure out the dream himself, it kept spreading infinitely - and I don't believe there's a limit of thoughts wizards can have in a single moment."

The man looked at Harry with a dubious expression.

"The basis for this reality was built from Harry and whoever was close, physically and emotionally, to him - that's just a basic principle of somniomancy. The further one was from Harry, the fuzzier reality must have been, which is why most of the older students are... well... in need of treatment."

Harry gulped soundly.

"Younger ones are recovering quickly, although their mental growth has been somewhat enervated as we say."

"But, professor, I'm sure I shared a dream before this all happened, with Hermione, the first ever. Was this not the potion either?", everyone in the room groaned slightly.

"Fake somniomancy is a regular occurrence, especially at your age, and especially between boys and girls - it's just a result of magical hyper-sensitivity and youth." the Headmaster explained patiently.

They argued together for a while, Snape handed the outsider Harry's current Soul Rest Draught vial, for fact-checking, hands were shaken, and Harry was removed from the office. McGonagall walked him out and assured him that he would not be punished, as says the law regarding accidental magic under seventeen.

* * *

Quickly, and strangely, life started moving forward again. Harry made acquaintance with Ron, the real one, not the one he had shared so many adventures and jokes with, not the one he had saved the sister of, not the one that had been his best friend. Draco and Severus, real people, turned out a lot milder than they'd ever be in Harry's wildest dreams, and he felt bad for how much he had demonized them.

He found himself sometimes crying at the loss of Luna, and moreso than her "loss", at the simple fact that he had created her entirely and she had never even existed in this world, the fact that no one real was as silly and pleasant as Luna. Daphne was real, though, and of that, Harry only could be excited, because they caught each other's eyes a couple times again. Older students had left Hogwarts, for mental rehab - which he felt pretty bad about, and a lot of the ones he "knew" were very perturbed from the switch to the real world, or completely different from their fake counterpart. Hermione had been touched deeply but was recuperating slowly, a process that could take several years.

And like all of the first years that had been whisked away in his subconscious dream-prison, Harry had to rethink most of what he knew about magic, spells, potions, and had to deal with having roughly half his housemates seemingly four years stupider than him - and that was the toughest part.

"Well, don't laugh at me but yeah... I had one. Your sister." he explained to Ronald who almost choked on the biscuit he had previously been munching on.

"My sister? Merlin what's wrong with you?"

"I know, right, I never even talked to her or anything, I guess we made her up completely."

Ronald looked at him with a squint, "We, so you and me, right? So if I made her up, she should be a bit real."

Harry shook his head, "No, no, we made you up too, remember? So basically, maybe there was a bit of Fred and George's memories in her, because they were real, but I'm not so sure."

"Wicked, man. You better stay away from my real sister, alright?", they laughed.

"Harry.", called a young girl from their left, they stopped and saw Hermione in a doorframe, her hair bushier than it was after she'd grown up, her teeth rabbitier than they were after she'd polyjuice herself into a cat, but her eyes as heavy as they'd ever gotten. "Can we talk?"

They shrugged and moved toward her, but she held her hand up. "I meant just Harry."

Harry shook his head, "Hermione, you can't keep -"

"Another time, promise. Just you now." she insisted.

He sighed but abandoned Ronald who patted him on the back, and followed her in the classroom as she shut the door.

"How are you doing?" he still wasn't used to his old voice and how silly it was.

"How am I doing? Just great, Harry, plenty of doing, I am. Learning and studying, all over again, you know I love it." she laced her own young voice with sarcasm, even though she didn't seem to be saying sarcastic things, he noted. "Magic's totally different, you know, of course you don't, you never bothered with sessions and prime signals, nobody did, why would they have? It was all my idea and utterly pointless."

"Yea -"

"Pointless, really, is the word. Because in this world, they don't even try, you know, it's just magic. How does magic work? Who cares, magic! You learn that stuff? It's got no meat. It's got no guts. It's random, baseless and shallow. Great system we got there, let me tell you. Absolutely amazing in its depth of mechanics and possibilities, hah." she spat and kicked a chair before inhaling deeply. "You were saying, Harry?"

Harry shook his head and attempted to half-sit on a table until he noticed he was too small for that, so he opted for leaning against it. "Nothing, you had something to tell me."

"You ever took a look at the library here? It's bloody nothing. It's half third rate fictional novels and the other half magical history - there's maybe ten books in there that actually tell you about spells, about magic, Harry, about god damn magic! And even then, they're redundant, they're filled with frivolous nonsense, there's no such thing as in-depth arithmancy and old runes are nothing more than a dead, platonic alphabet - things that used to matter, Harry, a lot!"

"Hermione, calm down!" Harry ordered her, grabbing her by the shoulders.

She stared at him with wild, maniacal eyes as he spoke:

"You have to stop comparing. You have to let go."

She softened and looked at him with almost-fox eyes, throwing him off balance, "But thank god there's you, Harry. My very own Harry, and you're the key."

She slowly walked around him and let her fingers linger on his shoulders, "I mean, be honest, what truly differentiate this reality from ours?"

"Ours?"

"The fact that more people make it up? Doesn't matter one bit to me, I only need you.", she all but whispered. "You and the intricate mechanics of magic all mine to study and master, all mine... "

Harry eyed her sadly. "The dream is over, Hermione, and we're never going back in, you have to finally wake up from it."

"Mmmh, well, at least this world's magic is easy to use, I wonder why they even need a school, I'd probably die of boredom seven years in this place.", she talked lasciviously, a tone that should never come out of lips this young, "For example, the Memory Charm, they have one too, here. It's called the Forgetting Charm, and its incantation are the last words I have to tell you."

She waved her wand in a split second, Harry got slammed against the wall, not hearing the incantation, she moved another time, yelled another incantation unknown and his mouth was filled with a large cotton ball. Bound and gagged, he moaned soundly and shook within the little amount of shaking room he had.

"I figured it out, my dear, dear Harry!" she yelled gloriously, a devilish smile splitting her young face. "You were the king, the pillar, the one that started it all and will start it all over again. You created this world I cherish so much, and by the gods I will have it back, I will have you back, my Harry, my world, my reality, my magic, mine, MINE!", she absolutely screamed at the highest pitch, her throat yielding eventually and leaving her panting.

"I'll erase your memory of waking up, I'll erase my own memory of waking up, I'll feed you the sleeping potion, I'll hit you with a confusion charm and convince you everyone has been spiked, I've set it all up, I've prepared it all." she purred, getting closer and caressing his chin, "It won't be the same, different people will be drawn in, naturally, but that's for the better, the dream will be solid, very solid, I will be its guardian, I've prepared fully."

Harry stared at her amourous gaze and moaned through his cotton gag; he wanted to beg her, he wanted to plead for the madness to stop, but his muffled wails were ignored - Hermione had gone off the deep end, utterly and unconditionally, she had lost her mind, her outburst left no doubt whatsoever, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Oh Harry, we're going to have so much fun, all over again!" she giggled, and raised her wand at his imploring eyes.

"Sohani Zibi!""

The end.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading :)**

 **Feet fact: we have over 250 thousand sweat glands in our feet, which can sweat half a pint in a day.**


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